OpenSea updates stolen item policy to combat NFT theft

It’s a no-brainer, asset theft has grown to become one of the biggest problems in the NFT space, and given its position as the largest marketplace for NFT transactions, OpenSea has often come under fire for its actions and policies.

In a recent Twitter thread, OpenSea clarified its stance on its stolen item policy, as well as announced additional measures to curb the activities of scammers.

The NFT trading platform said that its policies are designed to conform to United States laws, where knowingly allowing the sale of stolen assets is prohibited. However, some users have become victims after being penalized for unknowingly buying stolen NFTs. As a result, OpenSea is updated its policy to expand the use of police reports.

According to the post, police reports were previously used in escalated disputes. But moving forward, they will now be used to confirm all theft reports. Customers whose items have been stolen will have seven days to provide a police report. Failure to do so, and the platform will reenable buying and selling for the reported item. “This change will help prevent false reports,” OpenSea wrote.

Secondly, the platform is working to simplify the process of withdrawing a stolen item report and reenabling the buying and selling features once the stolen item is recovered.

Meanwhile, the company noted that it was working on other ways to tackle the problem of NFT thefts at its core. Notably, OpenSea is working on automating threat and theft detection.

But while one Twitter user lauded the move as a good first step, some community members were still on the edge.

In particular, one user claimed that he was asked to sell an allegedly stolen NFT on another NFT marketplace by an OpenSea staff after he contacted them for support.

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