Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, says that the move will give the company multiple years’ runway “under different crypto winter scenarios.” OpenSea, a top NFT marketplace, has laid off approximately one fifth of its employees.
via Tweet by Devin Finzer on Thursday. Finzer stated that approximately 20% of the company’s workforce is leaving the company, citing the need to adapt to market conditions.
Finzer stated, “The truth is that we are now in an unprecedented combination crypto winter and macroeconomic instability. We need to prepare our company for the possibility a prolonged downturn.”
“The changes that we are making today will allow us to maintain multiple years’ runway under different crypto winter scenarios (5 year at the current volume) and give us high confidence that this process will only be necessary once.
The severance package for terminated employees includes 12 weeks of severance, six months of health coverage, a mental healthcare option and accelerated equity vesting. An OpenSea spokesperson confirmed this to Decryptvia email. OpenSea could not provide details about the number of laid-off employees or which departments were affected.
Finzer is positive that the NFT area will continue to improve despite the layoffs.
He stated that “During the winter, we’ll witness an explosion in innovation throughout the ecosystem” in a Twitter thread.
Two weeks after its worst month in nearly a year, OpenSea has announced layoffs. The marketplace’s Ethereum NFT trading volume dropped by 73% in June. OpenSea has generated over $1 billion per month on its platform since August 2021 according to Dune Analytics. This is an average of $2.5 trillion per month.
The marketplace’s volume, which generates revenue through a 2.5% commission on all trades in June, was just $695 million. This low amount may have hurt the market and indicated a need for downsizing amid lower demand.
OpenSea was valued at $13 million earlier this year. However, it is not the only company that is struggling due to the retreating retail investors. Some of the biggest players in the industry have recently laid off staff, including Robinhood, Gemini and Crypto.com.
