NFT marketplace halts most transactions due to proliferation of fake and plagiarized tokens

, the corporate that final yr helped Jack Dorsey public sale an NFT of his first tweet for , is briefly halting most transactions to handle “rampant” gross sales of pretend and plagiarized tokens. In an interview printed on Friday, Cameron Hejazi, the CEO and co-founder of the corporate, advised  Cent stopped permitting customers to purchase and promote most NFTs on February sixth. It continues to function its market, the place the place folks can buy non-fungible tokens of tweets, however that’s about it.

“There is a spectrum of exercise that’s taking place that mainly should not be taking place – like, legally” Hejazi advised Reuters. He mentioned Cent has tried to ban unhealthy actors however in contrast the trouble to a recreation of whack-a-mole. “Each time we’d ban one, one other one would come up, or three extra would come up,” Hejazi mentioned.

Final month, OpenSea, one of many largest NFT marketplaces on the web, mentioned greater than of the tokens lately created via its free minting instrument concerned plagiarized work, faux collections and spam. The admission got here after the corporate had tried to restrict the variety of NFTs customers may mint at no cost. After reversing the choice, the corporate mentioned it was engaged on a number of options to discourage unhealthy actors. Earlier than January’s announcement, artists and photographers had for months that the corporate hadn’t executed sufficient to handle the problem of plagiarism.

“I believe it is a fairly elementary downside with Web3,” Hejazi advised Reuters. Within the instant future, he mentioned Cent might introduce centralized controls to facilitate a reopening of its market. The corporate may then later discover extra decentralized options to the issue.