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ethereum

NFTs and transfer fees

I have read in various places that NFTs can be created which pay a transaction fee payable to minter of the NFT when it is transferred between owners.

But I don't see in the ERC 721 spec where that property (the amount paid to the creator on transfer of the token) is defined and "written" into the token. I wonder whether fees payable to creators on each sale of a NFT an off chain transaction by the platform on which the NFTs are bought and sold, rather than embodied feature of the NFT enforced by the blockchain transfer mechanism? If it is embodied, where is it specified?

Solution

  • The ERC-721 standard only defines an interface. So the actual implementation of the interface or its extension is up to each contract developer.

    Token minting or transfer rules are features that you can simply define on your own and in whichever way suits your needs. You can have

    • a fee that is deducted on each transfer going to the creator
    • an admin address that is allowed to define the price and anyone who pays can mint without any more fees
    • anyone freely minting and transfering new NFTs
    • only authorized addresses allowed to mint and transfer the tokens (and the authorization and possible payment are done off-chain)
    • no minting and transfers at all
    • etc...

    So in short, the ERC-721 doesn't define any way how to "correctly" mint or transfer new tokens and you're free to implement it however you need.