The developer of the Goblintown Ethereum NFT collection, Truth Labs, has changed the project’s entire artwork into animated GIFs depicting a middle finger with three extra middle fingers.
This change is part of Truth’s ongoing push for creator royalties as major marketplaces like Blur and OpenSea now only impose a minimum 0.5 percent creator royalty fee for many projects.
A creator royalty fee is linked to the secondary market sale of an NFT, typically ranging from five to 10 percent of the NFT’s selling price.
“F*** royalties. F*** supporting buildings and creatives. Flipping is the heart of what makes Web3 special. Honor the flipper, f*** the community. Long live the slow rug,” reads all 10,000 GIFs.
Starting today, metadata for all @goblintown, @secretsociety, @The187 and Grumpls has been refreshed.
We are upgrading the contracts for all ERC-721’s in the Truth ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/WJufX5CNTh
— Truth Labs (@truth) April 11, 2023
Following the artwork change, Truth also announced through Twitter account that Goblintown and Secret Society, along with other less prominent NFT collections like IlluminatiNFT, The 187 and Grumpls, are now disabled for bidding, listing, buying and selling on Blur and OpenSea.
Furthermore, any snapshots and transactions that take place after the tweet was posted on April 14 until the completion of the airdrop will be considered high-risk and will not be honored. The tweet also specified that the airdrop would be completed by the end of Sunday.
The new NFT collections will be airdropped to holders within 24 hours once the contract migration for all ERC-721s in the Truth’s ecosystem is complete.
These new smart contracts, which power autonomous decentralized apps (dApps) through their embedded code, will ensure that creator royalty payments are fully enforced on-chain.
Bidding, listing, buying, and selling on Blur and Opensea have been disabled for @goblintown, @secretsociety, @the187, Grumpls.
The holder snapshot is taking place now and any buys, sells, or transfers that occur from now until the completion of the airdrop are high risk and…
— Truth Labs (@truth) April 13, 2023
Movement within NFT community
Some Goblintown NFT owners pointed out that these changes indicated Truth was unable to provide value to existing owners and may be exercising “centralized decision-making.”
Last summer, some newer marketplaces offered users less expensive trades in exchange for undercutting the long-standing tradition of honoring creator royalty fees. Over time, more established marketplaces followed suit to gain a larger market share.
Centralized decision making is what this space is fighting for
Not giving your holders the chance to take this decision goes against the ethos of this space
Projects shouldn’t be allowed to take these drastic decision on their own, granted the result is valueable but where’s
— Rahim Mahtab (@Rahim_mahtab) April 12, 2023
In contrast, Truth Labs stands against this decision and aims to uphold creator royalties while still generating revenue from all secondary sales of its NFTs. Many other creators, projects, industry leaders and even NFT marketplaces share the same sentiment.
Moving forward, all collections from Truth Labs will include a five percent royalty as the creator moves away from Blur and OpenSea.
It’s important to note that royalties serve as a revenue source for NFT creators, including successful collections like Goblintown, which has garnered over $101 million in trading volume, as reported by CryptoSlam.
We as a team are committed to enforcing a royalty level that makes farming an unprofitable activity.
All Truth collections will have 5% royalty going forward.
— Truth Labs (@truth) April 11, 2023
Goblintown debuted on May 20, 2022, coinciding with the NFT market crash. The project’s name and website URL, which ends in .wtf, are intentionally chosen to evoke the chaotic feelings associated with the market drop.
It was initiated as a blasé project revolving around themes such as “groaning, moaning, memes and an undying obsession with urine and fecal matter,” as described by Decrypt. Furthermore, the project’s OpenSea, Blur and CryptoSlam account description consists of intentionally jumbled and misspelled words.
Surprisingly, within a few days of its launch, all 10,000 of its freely minted pieces of Goblintown were claimed, boosting its floor price by more than 2 ETH ($2,500 at the time).
As of the time of writing, Goblintown’s floor price sits at 0.395 ETH (approximately $833.26), with a market cap of 3,949 ETH ($8,330,947).
