News hardware The fall of cryptos and NFTs makes a new victim…
The crypto winter is not just affecting cryptocurrency exchanges. Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces are also paying the price of falling market prices. As a result, the largest NFT platform has announced that it wants to part with 20% of its workforce.
Opensea, first NFT platform plans to lay off massively
The first NFT market place announced last Thursday its intention to lay off a significant part of its workforce. In order to withstand falling market prices, Opensea estimates that it must lay off 20% of its employees.
The announcement was confirmed on Twitter by its CEO Devin Finzer: “Hello everyone, we have made the incredibly sad and difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by approximately 20%, and today we say goodbye to many of our friends and OpenSea team members”
He also clarified that the official reason for dismissal is “the combination of a crypto winter and the instability of the global economy.”
The CEO of Opensea, however, remains optimistic for the future, stating: “I have a huge conviction in the NFT space and in OpenSea’s role in it. During this winter, we will see an explosion of innovation across the ecosystem. »
This is a massive blow in the cryptosphere since the Opensea platform is currently the most important NFT marketplace on the market.
NFTs plagued by cryptocurrency decline
The bearish trend of the crypto market has already caused damage to the giants of the sector. Thus, last June, cryptocurrency platforms began to lay off massively, like CoinBase, crypto.com or BlockFi.
Although many world-famous brands continue to pursue the opportunity around NFTs by developing new projects, the sales volumes of non-fungible tokens also remain at an all-time low.
Indeed, NFTs are closely correlated to virtual currencies since to obtain its non-fungible tokens it is necessary to carry out transactions in cryptocurrencies (Ethereum, Solana, Apecoin, etc.). For this reason, the fall in cryptocurrency prices has led to a significant drop in the value of NFTs, and consequently, a general disinterest in them.
Thus, crypto platforms are not the only ones to suffer from the bearish context…
The roller coaster of the NFT market
You have surely heard of it, the global value of NFTs exploded during the year 2021. This strong speculation has allowed players in this niche market to become real giants of the web industry in a very short time. For some of them, turnover and headcount have multiplied significantly, in the same way as cryptocurrency exchanges.
Nevertheless, since January 2022, the NFT market has been facing a massive price drop. For example, the NFTs of the biggest collections, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and other Cryptopunks, have seen their value decrease by several tens, even hundreds, of thousands of euros…
Therefore, if the big companies in the sector want to stay alive, they will surely have to rebalance the scales by making difficult choices. As with crypto platforms, this first alarming signal could lead to the start of a long list of layoffs from other giants in the NFT sector…