OpenSea Lays Off Staff in Wake of NFT Slowdown
OpenSea, the startup aiming to be the go-to marketplace for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), has laid off about 20 percent of its staff following a recent downturn in the NFT space and the failure of several high-profile game launches. The layoffs reportedly cut out members of each department within OpenSea, including product management, marketing, and development. This marks one of the first layoffs in the NFT sector since 2018’s NFT slump and comes just after ’s recent $2 million loss following several high-profile gaming projects with launch delays or cancellations.
What is OpenSea?
NFTs are small digital assets, often used as virtual collectibles that can be traded and given to others on the marketplace. There are many different types of crypto-collectibles and a diverse range of communities that use them, so there’s not a common unifying factor beyond these assets all being digital representations on the blockchain.
That said, I think you could say that they’re predominately used NFT by game players looking for new experiences with their favorite games like Pokèmon Go or Animal Crossing.
A marketplace is an online venue where people buy and sell goods or services from one another.
How does it make money?
OpenSea is a marketplace for trading non-fungible crypto assets or crypto collectibles. The team raised $10 million in seed funding earlier this year and claims to have generated more than $300 million in transactions since launch. Users buy and sell non-fungible crypto assets, or crypto collectibles,
through their platform. But with all the slowdown happening right now, it has been forced to lay off 20% of its staff as part of its strategic pivot. is also looking at diversifying into new lines of business that are less reliant on the initial fad such as virtual reality (VR).
Why would anyone buy NFTs on OpenSea?
It’s unclear how much buyer base will be affected by the layoffs, but right now it’s not the only option for players looking to purchase gaming items. With the layoffs, OpenSEA may now NFT become one of the most economical marketplaces for assets, if not *the* most economical.
The market is still new and changing rapidly with plenty of competition. For example, if you’re looking to sell your assets, OPSkins has a listing fee that is cheaper than every other listing site out there and it also lists your items more often than does.
One way to give yourself time to find a better place to sell is to list them on multiple sites and wait to see which ones bring in more buyers before making your final decision.
The rise and fall of the crypto market
There are a few things we could expect g g forward. First, I think it’s safe to say that the past year and a half will have taught them an immense amount about how this space works, which means we should see some innovative features soon. Second, with new investors on board (whose identities haven’t been announced),
I would expect a more concerted effort to get their technology into more hands and gain more users. Third, perhaps most important is the question of decentralization.
As the larger companies that fund OpenSea continue to downsize staff because of shrinking revenues, I would expect them to push for decentralized infrastructure so that we may save our civilization and democratize power as one person and one planet – at least when it comes to digital assets!
How will this affect the community?
While this may be a tough time for Opensea, some opportunities come with the restructuring. There are two camps of people that were affected by the layoffs –
those who were part of OpenSea and those who used OpenSea. People who previously used Opensea can now engage more with communities that were previously hard to reach such as sticker collectors on discord or crypto enthusiasts on Telegram. Those employed by Opensea, now have an opportunity to turn to a different project or search for a new job that could be more fulfilling.
What should we expect next from OpenSea?
With the recent slowdown of sales in many digital goods, OpenSea is not the only marketplace that has had to lay off staff. Recently Steam announced that they would be pulling all digital games out of the store with no set date for when they would return, so you can expect to see more from Opensea as this will leave them with a much less competitive marketplace.
For more info Visit Us
