Introduction

In this dashboard, let’s explore NFT marketplaces on Ethereum to see which platform has paid out the most royalty in 2022. And examine royalty impact on NFT market activity.

Note

Analysis time: Jan 1 - Oct 6, 2022.

Approach

I extract NFT sales data from table ethereum.core.ez_nft_sales , royalty is the creator_fee_usd column.

Structure

• Overview
• Royalty of OpenSea vs LooksRare vs X2Y2
• Royalty & market activity
• Key highlights
• Conclusion

Overview

• Year to date 2022, of 7 NFT platforms, top 3 platform in royalty paid out are OpenSea (94.7%), LooksRare (4.8%), & X2Y2 (0.5%).
• Year to date 2022, royalty paid out by OpenSea is $1.04B, by LooksRare is $52.4M, by X2Y2 is $5.8M.

Royalty of OpenSea vs LooksRare vs X2Y2

Looking the overview chart above, we can see that OpenSea is the king of NFT royalty, much larger than LooksRare & X2Y2 by a huge margin.

• OpenSea’s royalty is 20x larger than LooksRare’s, 179x larger than X2Y2’s.
• Interestingly, the margin between OpenSea’s sales count and the other 2 platforms are not as big as royalty’s margin. OpenSea’s sales count is 55x higher than LooksRare, 20x higher than X2Y2.

It appears that % royalty per sale of LooksRare is much higher than OpenSea and X2Y2. Let’s examine it below.

• In deed, average royalty per sale of LooksRare is $188, while of OpenSea is $69, of X2Y2 is only $8.

Why is that? Is it because LooksRare has higher % royalty rate or NFTs sold on LooksRare have higher value? Let’s examine below.

% royalty rate = royalty / price * 100

• LooksRare does not have the highest % royalty rate, OpenSea does with 5.4% on average, while of LooksRare and X2Y2 are 0.19% and 0.17%.
• And LooksRare does have the highest average value per sale with $97.5K, much higher than OpenSea with $1.2K, and X2Y2 with $4.7K.

Has royalty rates of the 3 platforms stayed the same of changed over time?

• Daily average royalty rate of OpenSea fluctuated between 4% and 6.5%, while of LooksRare and X2Y2 did fluctuated in a much wider ranges.

Does fluctuation in royalty rate affect NFT sales activity on each platform? Let’s examine below.

Royalty & market activity

OpenSea

• On OpenSea, generally, when royalty decreased, the same trend happened across market activity such as sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count.

X2Y2

• Unlike OpenSea & LooksRare, on X2Y2, though in general, royalty bounded in a range, sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count were in up trends.

LooksRare

• Similar to OpenSea, on LooksRare, when royalty decreased, the same trend happened across market activity such as sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count.

Key highlights

• Overview
  • Year to date 2022, of 7 NFT platforms, top 3 platform in royalty paid out are OpenSea (94.7%), LooksRare (4.8%), & X2Y2 (0.5%).
  • Year to date 2022, royalty paid out by OpenSea is $1.04B, by LooksRare is $52.4M, by X2Y2 is $5.8M.
• Royalty of OpenSea vs LooksRare vs X2Y2
  • OpenSea’s royalty is 20x larger than LooksRare’s, 179x larger than X2Y2’s.
  • Interestingly, the margin between OpenSea’s sales count and the other 2 platforms are not as big as royalty’s margin. OpenSea’s sales count is 55x higher than LooksRare, 20x higher than X2Y2.
  • In deed, average royalty per sale of LooksRare is $188, while of OpenSea is $69, of X2Y2 is only $8.
  • LooksRare does not have the highest % royalty rate, OpenSea does with 5.4% on average, while of LooksRare and X2Y2 are 0.19% and 0.17%.
  • And LooksRare does have the highest average value per sale with $97.5K, much higher than OpenSea with $1.2K, and X2Y2 with $4.7K.
  • Daily average royalty rate of OpenSea fluctuated between 4% and 6.5%, while of LooksRare and X2Y2 did fluctuated in a much wider ranges.
• Royalty & market activity
  • On OpenSea, generally, when royalty decreased, the same trend happened across market activity such as sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count.
  • Similar to OpenSea, on LooksRare, when royalty decreased, the same trend happened across market activity such as sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count.
  • Unlike OpenSea & LooksRare, on X2Y2, though in general, royalty bounded in a range, sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count were in up trends.

Conclusion

OpenSea is the king of NFT royalty with $1.04B in 2022. OpenSea also has the highest royalty rate with 5.4% on average. Both OpenSea’s royalty & royalty rate are much higher than those of LooksRare & X2Y2. On OpenSea & LooksRare, generally, when royalty decreased, the same trend happened across market activity such as sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count. While on X2Y2, though in general, royalty bounded in a range, sales count, project count, buyer count, & seller count were in up trends.

Thanks for reading!