Glossary
Royalty
A percentage of secondary-sale revenue paid back to an NFT's original creator — enforced on-chain by some standards (ERC-2981), off-chain by marketplaces.
Royalties promise creators a recurring cut every time their NFT is resold. The on-chain implementation (ERC-2981) only exposes the royalty info; actually paying it is up to the marketplace.
That weakness became visible in 2022 when Sudoswap, Blur, and others began enforcing zero or optional royalties, pulling volume away from royalty-respecting marketplaces. Creators now treat royalties less as a guaranteed cash flow and more as a marketplace-dependent norm.