NFT sales jump to $129 million, OpenSea layoffs and Elon Musk ditches NFTs: Nifty Newsletter
In this week's newsletter, we dive into the dynamic world of non-volatile tokens (NFTs) and their impact on the digital landscape, with NFT sales hitting an impressive $129 million in November, according to data from Nansen. Despite the boom in sales, Opensea laid off a large number of employees while preparing to launch version 2.0 of its underlying system, and Elon Musk inadvertently filed for Bitcoin Ordinals. Meanwhile, one OpenSea investor took a 90% stake in the platform, and don't forget this week's Nifty News featured The Simpsons roasting NFTs.
NFT sales jumped to $129 million in November – Nansen data
NFTs saw a huge increase in weekly sales volume, with sales reaching 29,704 Ether (ETH), about $56 million, and later increased to 68,342 ETH (over $129 million) in a few weeks.
NFT marketplace Blur had the highest trading volume in the last 30 days, at 161,433 ETH, worth around $305 million, followed by OpenSea at 52,307 ETH, which is around $100 million. When it comes to NFT collections, Bored Up Yacht Club (BAYC) had the highest trading volume in the last 30 days at 35,226 ETH, which is approximately $66.7 million.
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OpenSea will lay off 50% of staff in preparation for the launch of version 2.0.
OpenSea announced on November 3rd that it is laying off employees as part of its plan to launch OpenSea 2.0 with a smaller team. The company previously laid off 20% of its workforce in July 2022 due to the “Creto winter”. At that time it had 230 employees.
According to the company, 50% of employees will be affected by all activities. Those affected by the mass layoffs will receive four-month severance packages, expedited severance pay and six months of ongoing health and mental health care.
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Elon Musk Limits NFTs But Ends Arguing Case For Bitcoin Ordinals
Tesla CEO Elon Musk inadvertently highlighted the issue of Bitcoin Ordinals (Bitcoin NFTs) during a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The billionaire pointed out that NFTs are often not stored on the blockchain, but only URLs linking to JPEG images.
Bitcoin supporters used Musk's comments to argue for Bitcoin Ordinals, which was launched by developer Casey Rodermore in January. Bitcoin Ordinals are similar to NFTs but are stored on Bitcoin's blockchain.
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OpenSea investor cuts platform stake by 90%: Report
US-based technology investment firm Coatue Management has reduced its stake in NFT platform OpenSea by 90%. The company reduced its investment from $120 million to $13 million, lowering OpenSea's value to $1.4 billion.
Other than OpenSea, another Web3 company has also gone down. Coatue Management also reduced its investment in MoonPay, a Web3 payment provider, by 90 percent.
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Nifty News: The Simpsons Frys NFTs, Yoga Labs Takes Off After Anti-Semitic Tweets, And More
The animated television series The Simpsons aired an entire episode making fun of Halloween-specific NFTs. Homer Bart on Blockchain in the episode “Wild Bart's Can't Be a Token.” The segment continues to poke fun at the industry and how fear of extinction is fueling the market.
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Check out the Cointelgraphs NFT SteEZ podcast
Thanks for reading this recap of the week's most notable developments in the NFT space. Come back next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively growing space.
