The co-founder and CEO of the popular OpenSea marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFT), Devin Finzer, announced the reduction of the company’s workforce. The platform is laying off 20% of its staff to adapt to the current downturn in the crypto industry.
OpenSea saves 20% of all employees
On Twitter, the CEO shares a letter sent to OpenSea employees. In it, the company committed to providing its former employees with a “generous severance package” and health insurance for the remaining years of 2022 and 2023.
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Today is a tough day for OpenSea, as we are giving away 20% of our team. Here’s the note I shared with our team earlier this morning: pic.twitter.com/E5k6gIegH7
– Devin Finzer (@dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) July 14, 2022
OpenSea claims that it will provide its former employees with shares worthy of “those who did not reach the abyss”. The company also pledged to help its former employees transition to another company and “open up our personal networks to support them as best we can.”
Finzer writes the following about employees leaving the company:
“The people who are leaving are brilliant, hard-working and determined individuals who have played countless roles in bringing the OpenSea and NFT space to where we are today. They will be missed and they will forever be a part of our history and our community.”
Finzer claims that OpenSea was developed with “crypto periodicity” in mind. So he believes that the company will be able to hold out despite the downtrend in the cryptocurrency market.
However, the need to reduce the workforce was not only driven by this “cyclical” nature of the industry, but also by current macroeconomic conditions.
The CEO claims that this measure will allow the platform to survive for up to 5 years if the “crypto winter” continues. Vinzer:
“(…) The truth is that we have entered an unprecedented combination of crypto winter and broad macroeconomic instability, and we need to prepare the company for the possibility of a prolonged downturn (…).”
OpenSea joins the downturn in the crypto sector
As Coincierge.de previously reported, the cryptocurrency market has entered a downtrend along with other risky assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies have all fallen more than 70% from all-time highs.
This has caused companies that rely on cryptocurrency to reduce their workforce. In addition to OpenSea, crypto exchange Coinbase, exchange Crypto.com, crypto lender BlockFi, and others have taken similar actions.
According to an OpenSea spokesperson, the downward trend in the industry was caused by macroeconomic factors and global turmoil. The company representative expects this trend to continue and continue to negatively affect the industry and its sub-sectors.
Data from crypto research firm Nansen shows a decrease in activity in the NFT segment as the price of Ethereum drops. As seen below, the trading volume for the NFT sector has seen a sustained decline in activity, with June being a notable exception.

Text credit: Bitcoinist
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