Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and had an excellent week, welcome to CryptoGod-1’s blog on all things crypto. In this post I will be looking at the recent news for the famous NFT marketplace OpenSea, who have announced plans to reduce its workforce as they look to rollout OpenSea 2.0.
OpenSea 2.0
Back in 2022 the leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea was valued at $13.3 billion. Times were good, everybody was desperate to get their hands on the next big NFT and OpenSea was the go-to marketplace. Fast forward to late 2023 and things have not panned out quite as expected. Between new marketplaces such as Blur and the overall NFT market downturn, the company has decided to move in a new direction - OpenSea 2.0.
As announced on Friday the 3rd of November 2023, approximately 50% of employees across the company will be let go as they look to reduce their workforce and push ahead with a new compact team. The announcement was made on X by the platform’s CEO and co-founder Devin Finzer.
The platform was launched back in 2017 when NFT's were nothing more than a new ground-breaking concept. It works on a business model similar to platforms like eBay and Etsy by accepting payments in the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH). Back in July 2022 the company was forced to let 20% of its working staff go due to the harsh environment of crypto winter. After those layoffs the company was let with a staff of 230 members, according to press reports at the time.
With the market for NFT's having peaked in 2021, the fascination with NFTs has since shifted towards other use cases such as tokenizing assets, identity verification, and legal documents. Of course the popular NFTs used for profile pictures remain, but the overall market has diverted away from the social pressure to obtain one of these valuable NFTs. The value of those NFT's have dropped over the previous year or so, with OpenSea looking to compete in an oversaturated market. Back in August 2023 the company faced considerable backlash from the community when it announced the termination of its operator filter, a feature that allowed creators to blacklist marketplaces failing to enforce royalty payments.
With the latest announcement, the company has done its utmost to ensure that all impacted employees are compensated, with a severance package of four months along with accelerated equity vesting and six months of continued healthcare and mental healthcare provided for all. It was also announced that the impacted employees would be from across all functions of the business, and that the number of middle managers would be reduced. As part of the announcement the company noted:
“Today, we are making significant organizational and operating changes as we focus on building a more nimble — and ultimately better — version of OpenSea. We are immensely grateful for the contributions of those who are leaving OpenSea, and we are supporting them with a robust package consisting of both financial and non-financial support.”
While the layoffs will seem harsh, the company has also posted 12 new job positions on LinkedIn, with starting salaries ranging from $90,000 to $270,000. These positions include Executive Assistant, Product Design Lead, Software Engineers, and Engineering Managers. Devin Finzer noted:
"As we embark on this rebuilding journey, we will continue to support our existing products and will gradually test OpenSea 2.0 in the public domain."
Have a great day,
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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