Did Citibank Pressure OpenSea To Remove Several NFTs?

Several items in a NFT collection were delisted by NFT marketplace OpenSea. Could the reason be the global bank giant Citigroup Inc C?

What Happened: The Hashmarks, a series of non-fungible tokens featuring art from 70 artists, saw three NFTs featuring clowns and names involving Citibank delisted late last week. The collection includes 16,384 digital portraits.

When a user clicks on the list to one of the previous NFTs, they are greeted with: “The item you tried to visit is no longer available on OpenSea. It will not be visible or accessible to anyone browsing the marketplace.”

How It Started ... How It’s Going pic.twitter.com/Q1pIwv9ZMK

— Beanie (@beaniemaxi) December 16, 2021

Twitter user BowtiedNarwhal joined Benzinga’s “Moon or Bust” show on Dec. 17 to share their thoughts on the delisting.

“It’s 'cause of The Hashmarks, 'cause of their NCT naming mechanism on the blockchain,” BowtiedNarwhal said.

The Hashmarks offers name change tokens, which give its owners the ability to change the name. Right now the only way to get the three clowns with “Citi” in their name relisted on OpenSea is to change the name, according to BowtiedNarwhal.

“We’re trolling them and they can’t do anything about it and they’re pissed. We’re using art to protest and troll banks and they can’t do anything about it.”

Benzinga reached out to OpenSea and Citigroup and did not receive comment back.

When asked if the owners of the delisted NFTs could be waiting for a marketplace to open from Coinbase Global COIN rather than change the name, BowtiedNarwhal said they see more of the same happening.

“Don’t you think they’re gonna do the same, bend the knee,” BowtiedNarwhal said of Coinbase.

Coinbase recently announced that The Hashmarks would be one of the initial NFTs added to its highly anticipated NFT marketplace.

Related Link: Top 10 NFTs By Weekly Sales Volume: CloneX Knocks Axie Infinity From Top Spot, Adidas Originals Joins The List 

Why It’s Important: One of the areas most proponents of cryptocurrency and NFTs favor is decentralization. The delisting by OpenSea could suggest that the largest NFT marketplace is not decentralized after all.

The marketplace has taken down copycat NFTs before when artwork is stolen by others or it rips an original project. This could be the first case of specific NFTs being delisted due to trolling a public company.

The floor price on The Hashmarks is 0.73 Ethereum ETH/USD at the time of writing, or around $2,800. The floor price on the clows is 5 ETH, making the delisted NFTs worth close to $20,000 each. 

The naming mechanism sees names changed to titles like Vitalik Nakamoto, United States of America and Elon Metamask. A quick search through the names also shows that several have Citi in their name and could face further delistings.