OpenSea Introduces New Stolen Items Policy to Protect its Users from NFT Theft‍

Asset scams and theft continue to be one of the biggest issues in the non-fungible token (NFT) industry, NFT marketplace OpenSea is aiming to modify its policy to include more security measures against stolen items.

OpenSea announced in a statement that its procedures were established in accordance with American law, which forbids intentionally permitting the sale of stolen goods. The marketplace acknowledged, however, that in certain instances, consumers who unknowingly purchased illicit goods were punished despite their ignorance. As a result and considering the NFT community’s input on this matter, OpenSea has changed its strategy to increase the usage of police reports.

In the past, escalating conflicts on the site used police reports, and now as a result of the new upgrade, they will be used to verify any complaints of stolen items on the NFT platform. To prevent false reports, the site will let the reported item be bought and sold again if a police complaint is not received within seven days. In response, the platform has made it simpler to reactivate the purchasing and selling functionalities if the stolen items are recovered.

A Twitter user praised the action, calling it a good starting step, and urged other platforms to do the same while recommending that the complexities of regulations from other countries and jurisdictions be taken into account as well.

To protect its users from NFT frauds, the platform enabled further security safeguards in June. Automatically identified NFT transfers that are suspicious are hidden by the feature, ensuring that only legitimate transactions are displayed in the market.