When you buy an NFT, creator royalties, a percentage of future resale profits paid to the original artist or developer. Also known as secondary sale fees, they’re built into the smart contract and trigger automatically every time the NFT changes hands. This isn’t charity—it’s a way for creators to keep earning as their work gains value, like a musician getting a cut every time their song is streamed.
These royalties rely on smart contract royalties, code-based payment rules embedded directly into blockchain transactions. They don’t need middlemen. If you mint a digital artwork and set a 10% royalty, every time someone resells it on a compatible marketplace, 10% goes straight to your wallet. This system works best on chains like Ethereum and Solana, where open standards make it easy for marketplaces to honor the rules. But here’s the catch: not all platforms play fair. Some, like OpenSea in recent updates, have stopped enforcing royalties on secondary sales, arguing buyers should control how they use what they own. That’s sparked major debates in the crypto world—should creators have lasting rights, or is ownership truly yours once you buy it?
Related concepts like NFT royalties, the specific application of royalty payments to digital collectibles and art are at the heart of many projects you’ll find in this collection. You’ll see posts about fake airdrops pretending to be royalty-based rewards, scam platforms that claim to pay creators but steal funds, and real tools that actually enforce these payments. Some tokens, like those tied to NFT collections or gaming economies, depend on royalty structures to fund ongoing development. Others, like the dead projects listed here, never had any real royalty system at all—just empty promises.
What you’ll find below isn’t just theory. It’s real cases: projects that got royalties right, platforms that broke them, and scams that pretended to offer them. Whether you’re a creator trying to protect your income or a buyer wondering why some NFTs keep paying out while others vanish, this collection cuts through the noise. No fluff. Just what’s working, what’s broken, and what you need to know before you trade, mint, or invest.
NFT royalties let creators earn from secondary sales, but not all marketplaces pay them. Learn how ERC-2981 works, why some platforms ignore royalties, and what creators and buyers should do in 2025.
