OpenSea Lays off 50% of Its Staff

OpenSea, the popular NFT marketplace, has decided to let go of half of its staff, according to co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer.

He mentioned that the company is working towards creating a new foundation for OpenSea 2.0, which led to laying off employees. Finzer also acknowledged the feedback received from users, stating that OpenSea has seemed like a follower at times, and that’s different from the kind of company they want to be.

The employees affected by this decision will receive four months of severance pay and other benefits. The new organization will have a flatter structure with fewer middle managers. This is the second time OpenSea is laying off staff this year, after firing 20% of its employees in July 2022 due to the “crypto winter.”

In August, OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, faced backlash from the community when it announced that it was discontinuing its operator filter feature. This feature allowed creators to blacklist marketplaces that did not enforce royalties.

Yuga Labs, the creator of popular NFT series like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, reacted by reducing its use of OpenSea’s Seaport marketplace smart contract. In a recent post, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced that the company is rebuilding and will continue supporting its existing products.

The upcoming OpenSea 2.0 will be tested iteratively in public. The company has 12 open positions and is offering starting salaries ranging from $90,000 to $270,000. During the 2021 and 2022 NFT market boom, OpenSea had a monthly trading volume of $2.8 billion.

However, the market started losing steam in mid-2022 as cryptocurrency prices fell. OpenSea considered removing creator royalties like other NFT marketplaces, but the move was met with protests from a large number of artists.