Non-fungible tokens (NFT) marketplace OpenSea wants these digital assets to develop despite the current negative results in the industry.
Last year turned out to be a very difficult period for the tokens of the specified category. Sales of virtual assets based on blockchain amounted to $8.7 billion in total financial volume in 2023. This figure is 63% lower than the result for 2022. Even the more than threefold increase in NFT sales between October and November, amounting to $918 million, did not change the overall state of affairs in the market of relevant virtual assets.
The mentioned category tokens have become a defining feature of the crypto bull market in 2021. At that time, NFT was perceived as a more accessible way for ordinary consumers to gain access to the digital currency market. Moreover, these tokens have become something like a symbolic status indicator. Anyone who has free money and wants to spend it, including to demonstrate a high level of financial capabilities, could purchase NFT and post it on their Twitter profile, which is currently called X and owned by Elon Musk. Over time, this social network stopped supporting profile pics of the mentioned tokens.
Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea, said during a conversation with media representatives last week that in the collective consciousness of the industry, NFT is identified as something more than a collectible. He also noted that these tokens determine the success of the sphere’s activities and the company not only as sales indicators. According to him, OpenSea is most concerned not with how consumers achieve the highest volume, but how they create the most compelling NFT use cases.
Mr. Finzer, during a conversation with media representatives, also stated that the company he heads is currently working on the creation of OpenSea 2.0. In this case, it means an updated platform, the specifics of which will improve the user experience and increase differentiation between the NFT category as the scale of use of the corresponding tokens expands.
Devin Finzer says that NFTs are displayed the same way on OpenSea and other platforms. According to him, in this context, there is no difference between a game token and an event ticket. He stated that his company really strives to have a marketplace interface that could be customized according to each type of NFT. Mr. Finzer said that OpenSea is currently working on displaying ticket tokens on a calendar and sorting them by date.
The mentioned token’s trading platforms, such as Blur and Tensor, have become popular by offering consumers a more professional trading experience, within which it is possible to profit from price changes. David Finzer stated that the OpenSea update will make it easier for customers to access the company’s platform. Separately, he noted that his firm has improved the detection of fake NFT collections and harmful URLs. In this case, fraud is implied, during which criminals steal tokens from victims. At the scale of the industry, this problem has become noticeable and often manifests itself.
During a conversation with media representatives, David Finzer refused to comment on his company’s termination of mandatory royalties for the creators of NFT. He also did not provide information about the prospects for resuming such practices.
David Finzer is currently tracking the growing use of the Solana blockchain for NFT. He is also interested in the popularity of Ordinals, assets like non-fungible tokens, in the Bitcoin blockchain. He stated his optimistic attitude regarding the fact that Ethereum is the blockchain of choice for NFT. In this case, the layer-2 chains helped to reduce the cost and speed up transactions.
David Finzer does not agree with the opinion that blockchain will become the main option for NFT in the future, even considering that ETFs stimulate the growth of the value of Bitcoin. According to him, the sorts of applications that can be created based on Bitcoin are likely to be limited to art-type use cases, as opposed to more diverse stuff.
Last year, against the background of falling NFT sales, the value of Bitcoin, which is the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, showed an increase of 160% year-on-year.
Also, 2023 was a period of difficulties and trials for startups operating in the sphere of digital currencies. These firms, which are at an early stage of existence, faced difficulties in raising financing, which were the result of harsh measures by regulators and high-profile criminal cases.
In 2023, the volume of venture capital investments in the crypto industry decreased to $9.5 billion. This figure is less than a third of the total amount of financial injections for 2022.
The problems of the crypto industry became especially noticeable in the fourth quarter of last year. At that time, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on numerous fraud charges. Also in the fourth quarter of 2023, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering requirements.
As we have reported earlier, CoinGecko Acquires Zash to Add NFTs to the Platform.
