OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace during the 2021-2022 bull run, is now in the middle of a transition to a new “OpenSea 2.0” launch and a very weak team with the following Laid off last fall. And we're beginning to understand what that looks like as a once-dominant marketplace contemplates its evolution and next steps.
On Tuesday, OpenSea announced support for ERC721-C Ethereum The NFT token standard, developed by a video game startup, allows project creators to enforce royalty payments on the secondary market.
It's the latest move by OpenSea to adapt to changing tides. NFT Royalty enforcement Last year and a halfAs competing marketplaces move away from the once standardized creator fees.
The market place He said it would be done by the end of 2022. He continues to make royalties. Following the creator's push, he started a protocol to try and secure royalties on new collections. However, in the end OpenSea It has moved away from the operator-filter protocol And at the end of February for his sunset support. ERC721-C represents another run at the royalty problem.
ERC721-C support is enabled by the recently released update to OpenSea's Seaport 1.6 protocol, said CEO and founder Devin Finzer. Decryptwhich one Allow creators to set conditions before an NFT can be traded – in this case, honoring royalty payments.
“We're generally looking for new ways to support creator income,” Finzer said. “Seaport 1.6 was made possible by Denkun's upgrade to Ethereum, so it was something that allowed us to implement this functionality in this unique way.”
OpenSea laid off nearly half of its staff in November following a dramatic shakeout among NFT marketplaces earlier in the year. The first competitor was the Blur OpenSea Thanks to the promotion of business through its own token. An OpenSea representative could not confirm the size of the company's team at the time of publication.
Finzer said the slim company is reviewing the NFT marketplace experience, combining the OpenSea and OpenSea Pro platforms into a single interface, developing a “really streamlined and smooth onboarding experience for users,” and planning to deploy custom interfaces for such categories. Game and ticket.
“We're really fine-tuning the product,” Finzer said. “So that means a real visual refresh of the product and a refresh of the infrastructure.”
The shift comes as OpenSea's market share fades to single-digit percentages, with less than 3% cross-chain transaction volume compared to previous data share. Teco– and less than 7% in the last 30 days. of Champion of late It's Magic Eden, which has launched a rewards program in parallel with the upcoming “NFT” token airdrop.
OpenSea has long resisted the idea of launching its own token, as rivals such as Blur and LooksRare have done in the past. It's been the biggest burning question in the marketplace for years, especially as competitors gain steam by tying their own tokens or rewards programs to future token drops.
Asked if he thinks such token incentives are sustainable, Finzer said whether or not the marketplace would consider creating and launching its own token ecosystem. But he admits that token incentives are “really fun” and can be an effective way to get users to stick with protocols they frequent.
“In general, across crypto, the idea of getting users involved and empowered and aligned with apps is really exciting,” Finzer said. Decrypt. “And that's something we've seen everywhere in crypto, really since the dawn of time Bitcoin And Ethereum is more involved – there is more skin in the game when it comes to the use of crypto products.
I think we're seeing that trend play out more and more in crypto, and it's exciting to see. He added. But no, we have nothing to share on our front in this regard.
Finzer gave a similar response in terms of whether he plans to support OpenSea Bitcoin ordinaryNFT-like protocol that helped the magic Eden Raise the leg against all other rivals in recent weeks. While Ordinals has caught the attention of Bitcoiners, he says recent developments in the Ethereum ecosystem are compelling.
“There is no announcement yet on that front,” Finzer said of Bitcoin assets. But of course I think, in general, the Ordinals ecosystem is very interesting. It involved the Bitcoin community.
However, ordinary Bitcoin transactions tend to be high-cost, and Finzer has low-cost transactions through Ethereum's layer-2 network. basis They are currently a big focus for OpenSea.
with Layer-2 charges drop significantly After Denkun's upgrade, they're seeing a lot of demand on Base, and they expect scale networks to better support use cases like gaming. Making it easier to move funds across networks and transactions is still a work in progress with Layer-2s, but sees their emergence as a key step in bringing NFT to the masses.
“Fuel costs have to come down, right? And the exciting thing is that they've come down dramatically now. It's just a matter of putting things together and making the user experience great for users today,” he said. is it.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
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