OpenSea Updates Its Policy To Protect Users From NFT Theft and Scams

OpenSea finally addresses the elephant in the room, the issue about allowing to sell stolen NFTs.

NFT theft and reselling of stolen Two of the most difficult challenges that are encountered every day in the non-fungible token (NFT) industry are

There is a massive outpouring of complaints on social media from users reporting that they have been hacked or that their assets have been stolen.

In some cases, there are also users coming out and confessing that they have unknowingly bought an NFT that was stolen and still received charges from OpenSea for not knowing.

As reported by Crypto News, in line with that issue, OpenSea, the world's most used NFT platform, is working to modify its policy so that it includes more precautions against items that have been stolen.

OpenSea Policy

The OpenSea policy on selling NFTs has now changed and is expected to change in the near future. The platform published several tweets clarifying the most pressing concern of NFT theft nowadays:

According to the company, based on the suggestions made by the community, they are now working to change it.

OpenSea has determined that certain aspects of the way they carry out their policy need to be modified. The company has stated that they are taking action to address the issue by modifying the way in which they utilize police reports.

Back then, the company used police reports that were only used to escalate disputes. However, they have since changed that to now be used to confirm all theft reports.

If a customer wants to purchase an NFT project that is suspicious, they will temporarily freeze the sale. If they do not receive a theft report in seven days, they will re-enable buy and sell for the reported item.

In this way, the company expects to see a reduction in the number of false reports.

In addition, they are making it simpler for users who have previously reported an item stolen to re-enable buying and selling on the platform once they have either recovered the item in question or come to the conclusion that they should retract their stolen item report.

According to Cointelegraph, when it comes to allowing the sale of a reported stolen NFT, it is a violation of the law in the United States to knowingly permit the sale or transfer of stolen assets.

OpenSea defends themselves by saying that they do not want to encourage theft by giving users the ability to use their platform to help sell stolen goods.

OpenSea's Long Term Goal

OpenSea also admitted that there have been some instances in which a buyer who unintentionally acquired a stolen item was nevertheless subjected to a penalty for their purchase.

The company stated that this is one of the more challenging problems that they have to deal with. Finding solutions that get at the core of the problem will continue to be one of the company's primary areas of concentration over the course of the long term.

They stated that work is being done to improve the automation of threat and theft detection, including the blocking of suspect URLs at an earlier stage.

In addition to this, OpenSea is working closely with partners in the ecosystem to help prevent theft and remove incentives for it, and it is improving educational resources with the goal of assisting users in remaining safe while using web3.

The NFT platform stated that they will continue to design policies that protect their community's safety.