As the NFT ecosystem continues to evolve, imitation and plagiarism are growing issues that hinder trust in this space; in a recent blog post, we outlined a number of changes aimed at improving authenticity on OpenSea and increasing trust for our community.

Our changes cover 2 areas:

1. An updated account verification and collection badging system that also broadens the number of creators eligible for verification.
2. An automated system to identify, remove, and prevent instances of “copymints” (copies of authentic NFT content).

In this post, we will dive deeper into the updated account verification and collection badging system and give insight into our verification plans moving forward.

Account Verification and Collection Badging on OpenSea

Account verification and collection badging on OpenSea are intended to help both creators and collectors by surfacing authentic accounts and content more prominently.

But we’ve heard from our community that eligibility for verification and badging is opaque and the process is slow and cumbersome. So we’re rolling out four changes to improve the system:

• An invite-based account verification system, with broader eligibility criteria
• An updated collection badge
• A new streamlined, in-product notification and application experience
• A dedicated customer support team for verification and badging, with response within 7 days

Please note that while many parts of this process are improving, projects that are currently verified will not lose their existing verification.

The sections below will go into more detail about each of these changes.

Invite-based account verification

To start, any account that owns a collection with at least 100 ETH of volume will be invited to apply for verification. We plan to broaden eligibility soon and introduce additional factors, like presence and activity on Twitter and Discord, when considering who should be eligible for verification.

This is just the start – we are committed to a future where any authentic creator’s account can be verified, while keeping scammers out of the system.

Updated collection badges

Collection badges are used to identify collections that are owned by a verified account AND have significant interest or sales. Initially, any collection with at least 100 ETH of volume will be eligible for badging. Similar to account verification, we plan to broaden eligibility criteria for collection badging soon.

In-product experience

Users eligible for account verification will see a banner at the top of their OpenSea account page.

When users click on the banner, they’ll be directed to the “Profile Settings” page which lays out the four requirements for account verification:

• A profile image
• A username
• A verified email address
• A connected Twitter account (Learn more)

Once these requirements are met, eligible users can submit an account verification request.

OpenSea will contact verified creators with an invitation to badge their collection via the email address they provided. These creators will be able to request badging for collections with at least 100 ETH of volume from the “Edit My Collection” page, and will be asked to:

• Set a collection name, logo image, and banner image
• Connect the collection’s Twitter account (Learn more)

Once these requirements are met, creators of eligible collections can submit a badging request.

A dedicated team of customer support specialists will respond to all account verification and collection badging requests within seven days.

Final thoughts

Today’s announcement is another step in making a more trusted and authentic OpenSea experience. For those who don’t yet meet the requirements, please know that we’re working on your behalf to expand eligibility. We’re committed to a goal where any authentic creator’s account can be verified while keeping scammers out of the system – and we know that we have more work to do to reach this goal.
In the meantime, please see our help center or contact us with any questions.