The NFT ecosystem on Solana is facing a legal and reputational crisis as Metaplex, the leading protocol behind Solana’s NFT standard, prepares to sweep over 54,000 unclaimed SOL, worth approximately $7.3 million, into its DAO treasury.
Burwick Law, the New York-based firm, known for championing investor rights in the crypto space, argues that Metaplex’s plan is not only ethically questionable but also potentially illegal.
The controversy centers on “resize rent,” a small amount of SOL paid by users during NFT minting to fund on-chain storage.
Following a technical upgrade that allowed NFT metadata accounts to shrink in size, excess rent has remained dormant in these program accounts, unclaimed by users who were either unaware of the funds or never received adequate instructions on how to retrieve them.
Metaplex now plans to transfer these funds to its treasury, ostensibly for community use such as airdrops and grants.