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 faux and plagiarized tokens. In an interview revealed 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 should purchase non-fungible tokens of tweets, however that’s about it.

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

Final month, OpenSea, one of many largest NFT marketplaces on the web, stated greater than of the tokens not too long ago created by its free minting device 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 without spending a dime. After reversing the choice, the corporate stated it was engaged on a number of options to discourage dangerous actors. Earlier than January’s announcement, artists and photographers had for months that the corporate hadn’t performed sufficient to handle the problem of plagiarism.

“I believe it is a fairly basic drawback with Web3,” Hejazi advised Reuters. Within the speedy future, he stated Cent could introduce centralized controls to facilitate a reopening of its market. The corporate may then later discover extra decentralized options to the issue.