OpenSea lays off half of its staff

NFT marketplace OpenSea is laying off 50 percent of its staff. This was first reported by Decrypt. Founder and CEO Devon Finzer writes on the X platform, "Today we say goodbye to a number of OpenSea colleagues." It is not known how many employees the company is letting go.

The background to the reorganization is declining trading volume in the NFT market. Streamlining the company aims to "create a new foundation" to "introduce new innovations faster," Finzer said on the short message service. OpenSea has long been considered the industry standard for NFTs. In 2022, the company was valued at an astronomical $13.3 billion.

At the time of writing, however, the marketplace is only in second place. According to data from Dune Analytics, the NFT platform Blur accounts for 73 percent of trading volume. OpenSea accounts for only 17.6 percent. OpenSea was recently criticized for poor quality control.