NFT marketplace OpenSea halves its staff

OpenSea, the non-fungible token platform, has laid off half its staff. The Block reports.

The decision comes as the marketplace’s development direction shifts. OpenSea 2.0 envisions a smaller team with direct user contact, said co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer.

“Sometimes OpenSea feels like a follower, not a leader. And that’s not who we want to be. We want to move quickly, with quality and conviction, to make more meaningful bets. So we have taken a step back and rebuilt from scratch our operating culture, product and technology,” he said.

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But we’ve also heard your feedback loud and clear: at times, OpenSea feels like a follower, not a leader.

And that’s not who we want to be. We want to move with speed, quality, and conviction to make more meaningful bets.

— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) November 3, 2023

The changes come amid a drop in trading volume on OpenSea to $106 million in August. The metric was the lowest since April 2021.

According to The Block, the platform’s share of the market NFT has fallen from more than 73% in October 2022 to 18% in November of the current year. Its main competitor has become Blur.

In September, Dovi Van of Primitive Ventures said OpenSea’s valuation had collapsed from $12 billion to under $1.2 billion.

Earlier in October, announced layoffs by Yuga Labs, the studio behind the NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club. The company focused on its own metaverse Otherside, launched in spring 2022.