Top NFT Marketplace OpenSea lays off 20 percent of its employees as they prepare for a “prolonged downturn”
OpenSea’s employees feel the cold of the crypto winter.
Months after the recent cryptocurrency crash, OpenSea, which is considered the world’s largest NFT marketplace, has laid off 20 percent of employees. A representative did not specify the exact number of jobs lost, but confirmed that 230 employees remain.
In a detailed tweet posted Thursday, June 14, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said: “Today is a difficult day for OpenSea, as we are letting go of ~ 20 percent of our team.”
Finzer shared a copy of the letter he had sent to employees earlier the same day, saying that “the reality is that we have entered a unique combination of crypto winter and broad macroeconomic instability, and we must prepare the company for the possibility of a prolonged downturn.”
Finzer called the decision “incredibly sad and difficult,” adding that each person who leaves “has played a critical role in OpenSea’s journey.” He said the company would provide “generous severance pay and health services through 2023”, in addition to support with earning equity, networking and job placement.
Finzer previously addressed volatility in the crypto and NFT markets, acknowledging: “We’ve been through the winter before, and we built this company with the cyclicality of crypto in mind.” He said the current changes made would put the company in a position to maintain “several years of runway under different crypto winter scenarios (five years with current volume).” He added that “winter” is the time to build.
Source: Google Finance
According to a report in TechCrunchthe redundancies “raise questions about the company’s aggressive growth tactics and how they approached the sustainability of the NFT sector’s groundbreaking growth.”
The report said that OpenSea has been one of the largest recipients of crypto bull runs during 2021-22, raising hundreds of millions in investor dollars, and most recently it was valued at $ 13.3 billion. This growth has not been without drama, the report noted. Last month, one of the company’s executives was arrested on charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Insider Trading involving NFTs.
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