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Author Ben Weiss, TheVerge compiles ARAIN, CHAINCATCHER
In April, a cloud -dense spring afternoon, I participated in the seventh NFT.NYC, which is the paradise for all monkeys JPEG pictures with price labels and other NFT believers.On the same day, the heavy rain in the center of Javitz had a feeling of being abandoned.
“The number of participants this year must be less than last year,” Ric Johnson is promoting a NFT that allows people to vote for decision whether Donald Trump should be jailed, and he told me politely.
A participant Big Mac, who only told me the net name, said that it is better to say that this meeting is not so much like the “preseason” rather than the “super bowl” of NFT.
And Tom Smith, a person who sells anthropomorphic marijuana plants on the stall, is even more blunt: “It looks really fucking here.”
As one of the most well -known companies in the industry, Opensea is one of the sponsors of this meeting, but the 33 -year -old co -founder and current CEVIN FINZER is disappeared.Another co -founder of Opensea Alex Atallah (he stayed away from this startup company) was indeed on the main stage in the first batch of conferences, but he did not want to talk about that made him and FINZER become more than 100 million times paper 100 million times.The technology of a rich man.On the contrary, he mainly talks about artificial intelligence.
Although the value of cryptocurrencies may rise, a hype in the last encrypted boom did not restore: NFT.According to Cryptoslam, in January 2022, the monthly total sales of the asset category reached a peak of more than $ 6 billion.By July 2023, this number had dropped to less than $ 430 million.NFT is still insisting, but it is already difficult.
“My mother thinks I am a liar,” I accidentally heard a participant saying.
More storms are gathered in OPENSEA, which used to be the largest trading market in NFT.This one of the most valuable private startups born from the incubator Y Combinator is now facing the unsuccessful lawsuit of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).The attention of international tax institutions, intensified competition, allegations of gender discrimination, and employee loss.
Through interviews with 18 current and former employees, as well as internal company documents and dialogues with other interests with investors, artists and other interests in the NFT industry, how the startup inspired by a cat JPEG picture has evolved into a former employee called called a former employee.The Meta “Lightweight Edition” story is on the paper, but now it seems to be lost between large technology and cryptocurrency culture.
Go out of the incubator
FINZER described Opensea as a huge vast new Internet entrance.But now the orgasm of the NFT seems to be shallow.
In 2017, FINZER, who was in his 20s, co -founded a startup with Starlah, a graduate of Stanford University and the same 20 -year -old science and technology industry practitioner Atallah.Initially, FINZER and Atallah planned to use cryptocurrencies to pay for Wi-Fi fees with strangers, and successfully settled in Y Combinator in January 2018. This is a well-known incubator that gave birth to technology giants such as Airbnb.
It was also at that time, the blockchain (that is, the unmanned decentralized database) ushered in another wave of waves, and developers were promoting a new way to store data permanently on the blockchain.The new method is called “intangible”, which means that they are not the same as Bitcoin.In other words, the holder of NFT can show off the real owner of a cartoon ape monkey, and this cartoon ape monkey is recorded in an indescribable database.
Industry insiders said that these tokens can represent almost anything: real estate contracts, patents, contracts, virtual real estate rights.But at the end of 2017, a company named Dapper Labs promoted a use of ordinary people: Cryptokitties, which can buy and sell cat cards on Ethereum (one of the most popular blockchains).
On the platform of some people’s claim that it is the next -generation form of the Internet, it is not only a cat’s JPEG picture.There is also Cryptopunks, which are pixels wearing Mossica hairstyles and sunglasses; digital trading cards inspired by frog the frog, which is a twisty (sometimes even racist)Meme in history; and EthereTulips, that is, virtual tulip, cough, they will “fight” with each other.
FINZER and Atallah noticed the boom and decided to change the direction.
“They are very ambitious,” John Caraballo told me that he was a contractor who was hired for three months to write an initial code for the OpenSea website.”The things they are building are very cutting -edge, and no one has done it before.”
In May this year, after graduating from Y Combinator (the project also includes marijuana injection soda and VR -based psychotherapy), Finzer and Atallah announced that they raised 2 million US dollars of funds for their NFT market -including Peter Thiel foundedThe well -known investors within the Human Fund.
“There will be some economic systems that are completely different from our craziest imagination -we hope to help realize them,” FINZER wrote in a blog post on announced financing.”Things have just started to become interesting …”
In the past three years, the NFT industry is not exciting.According to DAPPRADAR data, in 2020, only hundreds of traders are used every day.A former employee said there were less than 10 employees at the time.
(OpenSea spokesman Joshua Galper said tens of thousands of people using Opensea’s website per week in the middle of 2020).)
“All their lives are Opensea,” the former employee described me to other team members, including Finzer and Atallah.”This (work) is really interesting, but at the same time, it is very strict and very nervous.”
Just move as soon as the wind blows
Then, in March 2021, the NFT market began to heat up.Artist Mike Winkelmann (wider named name is Beeple) auctioned a $ 69 million NFT.According to data from DAPPRADAR, the value of NFT sold on the OpenSea platform is more than twice as much as the previous month.
Opensea can draw up to 10%of commissions from each transaction, and the increase in income has aroused the interest of investors.In the same month, FINZER announced that OpenSea raised $ 23 million from investors including venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, with a company valuation of $ 123 million.Opensea is more noticeable than ever, and the company begins to expand.
“It was really crazy at the time,” a former employee told me.”We all have a few positions.”
The NFT boom continues.After Beeple’s artwork set a huge sales record, a company named Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club (Boring Ape Travel Club). This is a NFT series containing 10,000 cartoon apes.You can participate in exclusive activities, enjoy privileges and products.People spend millions of dollars only for the real owner of a monkey who claims to be a golden hair or wearing heart -shaped sunglasses.
“When I first saw the boring ape, I thought:‘ What is this fucking? ’” A former employee said, “Then see the price that people pay for it -it is crazy.”
As more and more apes, punk, cats and penguins are easy, OpenSea has received more and more commissions.According to the company’s internal documents, revenue soared from US $ 9 million in the second quarter of 2021 to US $ 167 million in the third quarter and US $ 186 million in the fourth quarter.
“It was a very interesting period,” another employee said, “As soon as you launch new features, many people will talk about it.”
Suddenly, the trading platforms of Finzer and Atallah began to generate considerable cash flow, and investors rushed.In July, the startup company received another round of financing and raised $ 100 million with a valuation of 1.5 billion US dollars.
“The famous people suddenly emerged, and all kinds of money -grabbing behavior, (these) are really exciting,” said a former employee, “People who have not been in contact for many years send me an email … Everyone has seen the violenceRich opportunity “”
Inner scene trading, cash, options disputes … troubles are troublesome
But with the increase of funds, the problem also follows.”Every stressful thing feels the end of the world,” FINZER told the company in 2023.
In September 2021, OpenSea asked product director Nate Chastain to resign because some industry insiders found that he used inside information to trade NFT.Chastain’s technique is simple.Every few days, Opensea will promote the new NFT series on its homepage.Given that the platform is the main place for buying and selling NFT, the price will rise after being recommended on these token websites.Chastain knows which will be selected, so shortly after NFT appears on the homepage, he will sell to profit.”Nate’s approach at the time was quite common in this circle,” said a former employee.
Chastain was eventually sentenced to three months of imprisonment -this is the first case of the Ministry of Justice that successfully sued NFT insider transactions.However, insider trading is just the tip of the Iceberg of OpenSea.Users are also angry about the website’s downtime, spam or deliberately fraud, and the stolen NFT.”That’s like a bloody carnival,” a former employee described me with serious public welfare dilemma.Another former employee said that users joked that Opensea should be renamed “Brokensea” (meaning “faulty sea”).
“Opensea strives to maintain response and attention to users,” Galper said.
According to many former employees, in order to cope with the sudden surge in transaction volume and other issues, FINZER and Atallah need to expand the employees of OpenSea and start introducing those from large technology companies or corporate backgrounds.
“There is no promotion mechanism within the company,” said a former employee.
“They hired these damn beasts, these” reptile ‘from Amazon, Facebook, Google and other companies, “another former employee said.Drill in “
Most of the current leadership teams joined in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, including Chief Operating Officer Shiva Rajaraman and Chief Technology Officer Nadav Hollander.During the peak, Opensea had about 300 employees -this is a considerable expense, and just a few months later, FINZER and Atallah cut this expense.
Galper wrote: “Our primary task has always been looking for the best talents anywhere, whether it is from large technology companies, small companies, or native talents in the cryptocurrency industry.”
However, the funds were constantly coming.Opensea’s revenue reached a record high of $ 265 million in the first quarter of 2022.The two co -founders have also completed the largest financing to date: 300 million US dollars from the Blue Chip Risk Investment Fund, which made OpenSea’s valuations reach an amazing $ 13.3 billion.According to Forbes, as of the end of 2021, FINZER and Atllah each owned 19%of OpenSea’s shares.From the perspective of paper, they have become billionaires.(Galper said it was wrong to report on the proportion of co -founders in Opensea. However, “Forbes” did not issue a correction statement on the percentage of co -founder’s ownership.)
Investors of the company include not only venture capitalists focusing on cryptocurrencies, but also well -known people inside and outside Silicon Valley.These include the ace Cuban of the Shark Tank program, Kevin Durant, Basketball Star Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher and DJ 3LAU. These people are investors who have disclosed publicly.According to the company’s internal documents, the list of shareholders of OpenSea also includes James Musk, YouTube co -founder Jawed Karim, Adobe Chief Strategic Officer Scott Belsky, and Charlie Songhurst, former Microsoft strategy director.
According to a source familiar with the transaction, in this round of huge financing, FINZER, Atallah and a few early employees quietly cash out some of the equity.
Galper confirmed to me that some employees can indeed “sell their shares during the C -round C financing, but he did not specifically explain the size of the profit of FINZER and Atallah.
Galper added: “Teams and investors believe that it is the correct way to provide some people who have paid great efforts to the company’s milestone.”
Five former employees told me that the co -founder never disclosed to all employees that the second -level shares repurchased.”This surprised me a little, because they seemed very transparent in other decisions,”
Two former employees said that those employees who only received shares after financing C -round C were subsequently banned their equity.
(Galper said: “The company does not remember any employees who ask for the sale of shares to a specific investor after financing.”)
A former employee said: “The biggest news will be the sales of these secondary markets. The others are not so interesting.”
Go downhill at the peak
Opensea seems to be moving towards the mainstream, but the troubles continue.Soon after Hollander, the current chief technician of Opensea, joined the company, his team found a serious loophole in the company’s code. This vulnerability may allow the attacker to receive payment without sending NFT to the victim.Although there was no actual attack, FINZER later told employees in 2023 that “this is one of the most terrible things.”
In March 2022, when FINZER celebrated OPENSEA’s list of 100 most influential companies in the “Time” magazine, the NFT boom began to cool down.According to CryptOSLAM, the total sales of the entire market fell slightly from about $ 6 billion in January 2022 to only $ 1 billion in June.Opensea’s quarterly revenue also declined, fell to $ 171 million in the second quarter.
To make matters worse, according to the former employees participating in all employee conferences, until the first half of 2022, Opensea will still hold most cash reserves in the form of ETH (the second largest cryptocurrency calculated by market value).At the meeting, FINZER informed the company’s financial status to the employees.He said that OpenSea did not convert cryptocurrency funds into assets with less volatility, but wanted to be consistent and support the cryptocurrency industry.What is the only problem?By June 2022, ETH’s price fell nearly 80%compared with November 2021.
OpenSea still created 171 million US dollars in revenue in the second quarter of 2022, but after deducting losses and other debt caused by the decline in price, net loss reached US $ 170.7 million.
(Galper questioned this number, but did not provide financial data.)
A former employee thought after FINZER announced the financial mistake: “I thought at the time,” What kind of ghost, you are not someone’s personal investor. When we have so many upside, why should we take thisrisk?'”
Despite the financial dilemma, Opensea still showed his skills at the NFT.NYC conference in the summer of 2022.
“I heard that OpenSea covered a whole hotel in the city center, is it true?” Jodee Rich, co -founder of the conference, asked at a exchange meeting at the Radio City Concert Hall.
“It sounds almost,” FINZER replied with a smile.
According to two former employees, when most OpenSea employees were in New York in the same week, FINZER held a full company meeting to alleviate any concerns about the company’s future.Both former employees said that the information conveyed by the meeting was clear: don’t worry.
Less than a month later, Opensea cut off 20%of employees.
Around the same period, Atallah said that he would retreat from OpenSea to the second line, but will still stay as the board of directors.Former employees did not know why Atllah decided to leave.
A employee said: “There is always a strange atmosphere between Devin and Alex. I think they are not very harmonious together.”
Another employee said: “I heard that they are not consistent on many things.”
An an anonymous Opensea investor said Atallah told him that he left in a good relationship.The investor said: “I think he is the kind of person who likes to start a business. Once the company starts to expand and the nature becomes more enterprise, I think he may say, ‘I want to do the next thing.'”
Atallah denied the suggestion of the conflict between him and Finzer in a statement, and echoing the investor: “I have always liked the early stages of affairs, and finally decided that I would like to explore my new career again.”
But when Atallah left to do his next project, Finzer chose to stay and lead the startup company. At this time, the company’s condition seemed to be very different from a few months ago.In the third quarter of 2022, the income dropped sharply to only $ 32 million, and OpenSea lost more than $ 27 million.A former employee said: “morale quickly became very strange.”
Back to the darkness
In October, Opensea’s new eyes appeared: a new NFT trading market called Blur.Opensea has almost monopolized billions of dollars in NFT transactions.But soon, it had to fight for the leftovers.
Blur was founded by a programmer named “PACMAN”. He later revealed that his true identity was Tieshun Roquerre, a 20 -year -old Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout students and Y Combinator graduates.Blur doubles in a concept of finance NFT finance: assets that regard NFT as traders back and forth to seek profit.
Many professional traders hope to maximize profits, and markets such as Opensea charging version tax fees will reduce their profits.Blur is preferred to consider the privilege of traders rather than creators, and will not give the artist a certain proportion of the division of the artist on each work on its platform.Coupled with the promise of distributing cryptocurrencies to its important users -essentially free money -NFT speculators flocked to this new market.
Blur quickly eaten Opensea’s market share.According to DAPPRADAR reports, by February 2023, with the promise to issue cryptocurrencies, Blur has surpassed Opensea, and its monthly transaction volume is almost three times that of FINZER startups.At the same time, the quarterly revenue of OpenSea continued to decline. In the fourth quarter of 2022, it fell to $ 23 million, and in the first quarter of 2023, it fell further to $ 19 million.
FINZER feels that it must respond.A former employee said that Blur’s sudden rise “disrupted all our product vision. This is simply a disaster.”
An current employee raised his argument about this description.They told me: “As far as Blur is concerned, it has not really interfered with my work. I continue to develop the project and work as usual.”
Many former employees told me that OpenSea quickly gave up the mission of bringing NFT to the public, and instead decided to cater to the speculators.According to a sources familiar with the inside, Finzer even discussed the possibility of the company issuing cryptocurrencies with the founder and lawyer of cryptocurrencies.
Galper confirmed that the company’s executives have discussed the issuance of cryptocurrencies in the past. He said: “OpenSea has always focused on long -term development, not the short -term changes in the competition pattern.”
However, issuance tokens will be a high -risk action, because the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly claimed that most cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities.After the FTX collapsed in November 2022, SEC launched a wide range of crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry, reaching a settlement with some of the largest participants in the industry or filed a lawsuit, including the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and Binance.
According to previous employees, after the NFT.NYC conference in May 2023, OpenSea conducted another round and uninterrupted layoffs.A former employee said: “The rumor is that everyone is afraid of NFT.NYC, because all layoffs happened after it.”
Galper wrote: “The company carried out a small -scale reorganization, which led to changes in some team structures, so several employees left.”
In August, the trading platform announced that it would stop the execution of the creator tax, which made some employees very frustrated.Former employees said that this triggered a wave of internal objections.An employee added: “I think OpenSea still has not really determined their target audience and take a targeted action. They are just exploring constantly.”
SEC regulatory storm
As OpenSea’s decision to cancel the version tax triggered controversy, according to Kuo’s Instagram post, FINZER and his partner, Yu-Chi Kuo, a former cryptocurrency hedge fund manager left New York City and went to the “Desert Adventure” and participated in the “Fireman”Section (Burnpe “.
(Galper said that this is the first vacation of FINZER for more than a year.)
When FINZER and Kuo were carnivated in the muddy in the desert, the SEC took the first law enforcement operation on the NFT industry, saying that the NFT issued by the media company IMPACT Theory founded by Quest Nutritio was unregistered securities.Just a few weeks later, SEC also accused the NFTS issued by Stoner Cats 2 LLC behind Stoner Cats 2 LLC (a animation series supported by Mila KUNIS, FEATURING ASHTON KUTCHER and Jane Fonda) was unregistered securities.Impact theory and Stoner Cats 2 agreed to stop the order, and paid a legal fine of $ 6.1 million and $ 1 million, respectively.
Some employees of Opensea do not know that their company is in two independent supervision “transactions.”SEC has issued a third -party subpoena to OpenSea, which is forced information request, involving other entities related.In addition, according to the company’s internal files, SEC also associates a special lawyer for Opensea’s “case” and conducts “storage documents” with the agency.
The legal adviser described this back -and -forth consultant as “SEC transaction” and listed OpenSea’s defense reasons in an internal document.These reasons include: NFT is not a securities, OpenSea is not a stock exchange or agent, and OpenSea is protected by the first amendment to the Constitution and the protection of Article 230 of the Communications Standards.The content is responsible.SEC spokesman David Ausiello said: “SEC is not commented on a possible investigation that may exist or does not exist.”
Cat caution mouse game
Opensea spokesman Galper confirmed that since 2022, Opensea has received the requirements of the SEC.He said: “As part of our standard approach, we will cooperate with regulatory agencies and law enforcement agencies, and we are committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations.”
Although some employees do not know the affairs of the SEC, a vocabulary guideline instructs employees using appropriate terms when talking about NFT and OpenSea publicly.Legal consultants told employees not to say “buying or paying or paying on Opensea”, but said “buying on the blockchain”, “use the MoonPay (a cryptocurrency payment company) to buy” or “use OpenSea to buy”.The guide said: “It is very important to clearly distinguish this, because it will affect our tax and legal obligations.”
When talking about OpenSea, other terms that employees should avoid using include “exchanges”, “agent”, “market”, “profit”, “shares”, “stock”, “trading”, “traders” -It is usually used to talk about the vocabulary of securities, which belongs to the jurisdiction of the SEC.
There is also the so -called “FTC transaction”, which of which operates submitted documents to the regulatory agency.In addition to mentioning the existence of such exchanges, the internal documents I have obtained did not provide more details, and FTC did not respond to the commentary request.
Galper confirmed that OpenSea received the FTC file request and stated that it was the last time it submitted the file to the agency in August 2023.He refused to explain why FTC and SEC asked OpenSea to provide files, and when asked whether OpenSea received the official notice of a company or individual who was about to face a lawsuit -WELLS notification, he did not comment.
On the day I told Opensea we plan to publish this report, FINZER announced on the X platform that his startup company received Wells notification.”We are shocked by such a comprehensive action about the SEC’s creators and artists. But we are ready to stand up to fight,” he wrote.
Christopher Odinet, a professor at Texas A & Amp; M University, told me that he studied legal issues around cryptocurrencies. “Usually, when an institution asked a company to ask a company because they thought something was wrong.”
Christa Laser, a professor at Cleveland State University, has also studied the intersection of cryptocurrencies and laws. She said that although FTC’s information request may originate from suspicion of Opensea itself, its interest in the NFT market may only be that regulators try to better try to better better wayUnderstand an attempt for an emerging market.
She said: “Compared with the SEC, FTC is more likely to make non -investigation document requests, not investigations.”
At the same time, various tax authorities at home and abroad are constantly asking OpenSea.For example, according to internal documents, the Australian Taxation Agency (ATO) and OpenSea have repeatedly communicated whether the startup needs to collect the costs of each NFT sales on the platform on the platform and the full price of NFT.
According to company documents, in early October, Opensea’s legal team flew to Australia to argue that its platform should be exempted from more severe tax blows.If the Australian Taxation Agency (ATO) does not make a decision that is conducive to OpenSea, according to the number discussed in August 2023, FINZER’s startups will need to bear about $ 130 million in taxes.Not to mention the inquiries from the tax institutions from Washington, India and Taiwan.
The Australian Taxation Bureau refused to comment on Opensea on the grounds of confidentiality and privacy law.Washington also refused to comment for similar reasons.The tax institutions in India and Taiwan did not respond to the request of comment.
Opensea spokesman Galper refused to comment on the communication between the company and the tax authority.
According to a document I got, Gina Moon, the former general consultant of OpenSea, said at a plenary meeting: “We do have caused great interest in policy makers and regulators. In the end, the courts and the public will see our statement.”
Will Opensea2.0 arrive on schedule?
On Halloween, when Opensea’s quarterly revenue fell to the lowest level since the NFT boom, Finzer and his partner participated in the annual Halloween party held by Heidi Klum at the Marquee Night Club in New York City.According to Kuo’s Instagram, FINZER is dressed as a “AI hacker”, wearing glasses, wearing a hoodie printed with Openai logo, and holding the keyboard.His partner was dressed as his “AI girlfriend”, with bloody knives and prosthetic limbs that looked like mechanical.
(OpenSea spokesman Galper refuted that FINZER’s dress was temporarily made up. He only appeared for taking pictures. After walking an orange carpet, he hurried home to pick up his job call and continued to plan a major change for his startup company.)
Three days later, the second day when FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fric was sentenced to fraud, OpenSea announced a large-scale layoffs, resulting in more than 100 employees’ resignation, accounting for 56%of the total number of employees.FINZER stated on X that he is “re -adjusting the team around the ‘Opensea 2.0’, which is a strategy and product change that he has not provided too many details.
“This is a huge bet, and it is quite aggressive.” He later said to the employees.
According to the memo issued by FINZER to employees, the employees have obtained other benefits such as 4 months of cash dismissal and 6 months of health insurance.
FINZER invited the remaining employees to participate in an oversee meeting to discuss the company’s new direction.According to a document I got, at a plenary meeting, he said in a luxury mansion that once belonged to Katy Perry and Russell Brand in Hollywood: “The real goal of these changes is from the position of the follower to the leader.”
According to the executive team members Lorens HUCULAK said at the plenary conference, OpenSea plans to “become the import of web3″, which refers to the future of the Internet based on the concept of blockchain.The startup company plans to rewrite most of the code, making it easier for users to track encrypted transactions on the platform without access to other websites.”We will be a polymer, not only the aggregate chain, but also the agreement, the market, and various liquidity, including the tokens.”
According to a source familiar with new products, the product revision also includes the function of enabled OpenSea to compete with Blur.”This is just the re -packaging of OpenSea Pro,” they said, referring to the part of the OpenSea platform specially served the NFT speculators.However, an current employee refuted this description, saying that re -starting is not only the function of upgrading and increasing trading trading traders.However, the employee refused to provide more details about the restart.
Galper said in a statement: “Our plans for 2.0 are kept secret.”
Obviously, the new product vision and large -scale layoffs did not inspire employees or investors.Shortly after the transformation, The Information reported that one of OpenSea’s biggest supporters Coatue Management actually reduced the valuation of the startup to only 1.4 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2023, less than $ 13.3 billion in less than two years ago.A significant decline.
Subsequently, many executives of OpenSea left after layoffs, including legal consultants, vice presidents of operations, human resources supervisors, and communication supervisors.According to the company’s internal communication, OpenSea provided 20%cash bonus to the remaining employees to retain them.
(“We pay for those who don’t want to stay in OpenSea to leave them, and those who believe in the future of the company choose to stay to help us build it,” Galper said.)
According to internal documents, in the wave of resignation, executives are worried that there are no women in the remaining engineers or product managers, especially because some people who leave the company complain about gender discrimination.
(Opensea has previously hired an external investigator to investigate one of the complaints, and the investigator believes that the complaint is not based.)
Galper stated in a statement: “If we receive a complaint from employees, we will take it seriously and investigate in time. None of the allegations of any gender discrimination have not been confirmed, and we have never conducted any lawsuits, arbitration or mediation on the theme.”
One of them said: “Now there are a lot of nonsense, such as Slack messages and conferences.” The other said: “What surprises me is that people will return to the right track soon.”
NFT will not end with OpenSea’s decline
I visited the same spring of NFT.NYC, and I went to a dock in the Hudson River.
Opensea’s competitor Magic Eden is hosting a so -called “Degen yacht party” on a floating casino converted into a party ship.In the rain, I lined up and waited for boarding and talked to James Woods. He was a collector. The T -shirt was printed with NFT images he had: a black sunglasses, sailor hat and brown hoodie shirtPink dog.”In any NFT -related activities or important events in my life, I will try to dress like this,” Woods said, he also wore sunglasses, sailors and hoodie.He even worn even when he first dated the casino: “The effect is good.”
In the end, we boarded the boat.There are ice sculptures, DJs, and free foods on the boat (a participant tells me, like buffets on adult gifts), free wine, gold -plated elevators and energy drinks.I talked to a person who claimed to be “Breads”, and a person named “Toast” (the two had a enthusiastic reunion).”Chonky” plush toy lady.
Most people I chatted were poorly evaluated OpenSea.After all, I am on the enemy’s site.”They did not double support the creators who made them the best trading platform in the market,” Woods said, referring to OpenSea decided not to execute the tax fee, “On the contrary, they betrayed all of us.”
The yacht shakes left and right in the rain, but we never leave the pier.The storm is too fierce.Finally, on the third floor, I chatted with the co -founder and chief operating officer of Magic Eden Yin Zhuoxun.Like OpenSea, Magic Eden has also received the support of well -known venture capital companies. According to the recent round of financing, the valuation is more than $ 1 billion.”This is not an industry that you can sit down,” Yin told me that his nickname was Z, “everything is changing rapidly.”
Although Blur snatched the hardcore NFT trader from Opensea, Magic Eden seems to be eaten by Opensea’s popularity among the creators.In February, Bored Ape Yacht Club and other blue -chip NFT series, Yuga Labs, launched a competitive market with Magic Eden.In April, according to DAPPRADAR data, Yin’s company’s monthly NFT transaction volume surpassed Opensea and Blur.
Although the market is turbulent, most of the people I interviews in the NFT industry are optimistic about their future.
“If someone thinks that Opensea is declining, NFT is dead, then it is wrong,” TJ Fuller, co -founder of FORGOTEN RUNES, told me that the company is a fantasy project that allows fans to have characters in NFT. He believes this technologyStill innovative: “Where do we trade NFT is not important.”
Most of the former OpenSea employees I interviewed also saw the future use cases of these tokens: tickets for on -site activities or users in video games can more clearly say the items they have.However, some people added that the current and speculative culture cannot be expanded to cryptocurrency enthusiasts.”I think the current way is a bit bad,” said a former employee.”I don’t think selling JPEG pictures is worth it.”
At the end of the yacht party, I stepped off the dance floor and pushed away a man who played the flute like a member of the Metallica band and said goodbye to Woods wearing a sailor hat.When asked about the final view of NFT, he said, “Buy them as a collection. Don’t expect to make money from it.”
For Opensea, this may be a good suggestion.According to an internal document I got, the company lost about 30 million US dollars in the first three quarters of 2023.(However, it is expected that the November layoffs will reduce the company’s 2024 expenses.) According to data from DAPPRADAR, in June, the transaction volume on its platform fell to the low point before the NFT boom in early 2021.
Opensea still has sufficient funds.According to an internal document, as of November 2023, it owned $ 438 million in cash and $ 45 million cryptocurrency reserves. It is relying on these funds and hopes that the transformation of “2.0” can help it pass the difficulty.
FINZER once said that he hoped that his startup would build a ocean instead of a aquarium.
But if the NFT market continues to decline, OpenSea will not lead the ocean of digital collections -it will drown in water.
