Web3, which seemed to be on a 'high' in the past few years, has been poured with cold water. The plunge of Bitcoin has dimmed the light of the once 'crypto myth'. On the other hand, NFT is not as hot as it used to be, and "imposters" are becoming more and more prevalent.
▲Image from: Getty Images
The unique and distinctive nature of NFT as a non-homogenous token means that each piece uploaded to the trading platform is independent. This has given rise to many 'fakes', and with a few changes to a piece again, it's another irreplaceable new item.
▲Image from: Reuters
So not too long ago, OpenSea announced that it was going to start 'fighting fakes' by, on the one hand, updating the account verification and collection badge system, expanding the number of creators eligible for verification. On the other hand, a system to reduce 'copymints' (replicas) by identifying and deleting them will also be introduced.
Regarding account verification, OpenSea plans to switch to an invitation-based system, where any account with a collection of over 100 ETH will currently be invited to apply, and will later expand the number of creators eligible for verification. The change to this system is intended to enable verification of any real creator's account in the future, while keeping scammers out of the system.
▲ Image from: OpenSea
As for the system that identifies the pieces, OpenSea scans all the NFTs on OpenSea using computer vision techniques, and then, the system matches these scans to a set of real collections. Over the next few months, the platform will expand the collection of works next and keep training our model to improve detection.
Interestingly, for this image recognition technology to work, it requires a dedicated person to review the deletion suggestions made by the system, as well as continuous training of the model (it seems that Web3 is also inseparable from humans).
▲Image from: OpenSea
As one of the largest NFT trading platforms, there are countless NFT projects uploaded and transferred on OpenSea every day. The platform is flooded with 'imposters' that resemble the originals, disrupting the market and confusing users who want to buy NFTs.
These proliferating 'fakes' are also considered to be a problem for the platform, but most of them are also caused by the platform itself. In a Twitter post not long ago, the OpenSea said that more than 80% of the NFTs created for free on the platform were copied from other artists or spam.
▲Image from: OpenSea
Such a large number of 'fakes' are coming from OpenSea's previously launched 'inert mint' tool. With no upfront fees such as miner fees or ETH, users can easily create their own NFTs, but if the work infringes on protected intellectual property rights, etc., the created NFTs will be deleted by the platform.
▲Image from: OpenSea
Such a creative process also leads to abuse by people with ulterior motives. So it seems that OpenSea's announcement of a 'fight against counterfeiting' is to be expected. Many of the platform's initiatives, which were intended to make the NFT market more accessible to more people, now seem like 'good intentions gone awry'.
▲Image from: OpenSea
It's easy to fall down when you go too fast, and that's true for both Web3 and NFT, which have a long way to go before they can be 'brilliant' for long.