NFT Royalty Bypass
A technique used by marketplaces or traders to circumvent the on-chain royalty fees that NFT creators expect to receive on secondary sales.
Also known as: royalty circumvention, royalty-free trading
Last reviewed: 10 June 2026
When an NFT creator sets a royalty percentage (commonly 5-10%), they expect to receive that share of every future secondary sale. Because NFT royalties on most blockchains are not enforced at the protocol level but are instead implemented at the marketplace level, some platforms and custom contracts route trades to bypass the royalty mechanism entirely.
While royalty bypass is primarily a creator-harm issue rather than a consumer scam, it has consumer-protection relevance in secondary ways: projects that promise ongoing royalty-funded development, community rewards, or buyback mechanisms may be unable to honour those commitments when a significant share of secondary sales bypass royalties, constituting a form of misrepresentation to investors.
Buyers and collectors should verify where a collection's secondary volume flows and whether the promises tied to royalty income are realistic given the current marketplace landscape.