In a series of blogposts published yesterday, Opensea announced that it will be rolling out a set of new features to detect counterfeit NFTs and reduce instances of plagiarism and imitation to “improve the authenticity” of its marketplace. 

The update includes a complete overhaul of the account verification process through an invite-only verification application and a blue badge which will be available to accounts with at least 100 ETH trading volume.

These new safety features are an attempt to counter “copymints”, fake tokens ripping off original NFTs by selling users mirrored versions of them. In 2021, the platform banned two fake collections copying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

The NFT marketplace is implementing a new two-part copy detection system to counter “copymints”. Using image recognition technology and human reviewers who will look at removal recommendations, Opensea will scan NFTs on the platform, compare them with authentic collections and look for flips, rotations and other variations to root out fake NFTs.

These updates are a swift response to the discovery they made in February, where over 80 per cent of the items they removed for violations were created with their free minting tool.

“We’re committed to threading the needle between removing copymints and giving space for those substantively additive remixes to prosper,” the blog post reads. “With this system, our long-term goal is two-pronged: first, with help from our community, to eliminate all existing copymints on OpenSea; and second, to help prevent new copymints from appearing in the first place.” They added: “We’ve already started the process of delisting identified copymint collections, and we’ll scale up our removal process in phases over the next several weeks.”

These updates are a continuation of a series of safety updates aimed at increasing trust, “protecting creators and collectors and ensuring our community can navigate the world of NFTs confidently”. Following a discovery in February that scammers were impersonating Opensea employees to gain access to their cryptocurrency wallets, Opensea rolled out a new verified customer support system to cull the practice.