Opensea, the nation’s biggest NFT platform, is laying off 20% of its workers. The information comes from CEO Devin Finzer, who tweeted a screenshot of a Slack message he sent to the entire company team on Thursday. Finzer blamed the layoffs on the economic unrest surrounding cryptocurrency in particular, as well as the overall economy. He added that if a prolonged slump occurred, the company would be prepared as a result of the cuts.
“The changes we’re doing today put us in a position to sustain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios (5 years at the present volume), and give us high confidence that we only need to go through this process once,” one of the team members stated.
Because Opensea does not disclose how many people work for the company, it is unclear how many people will be affected by the layoffs. According to TechCrunch, there are 769 employees on the company’s LinkedIn page, so approximately 150 people lost their jobs. According to Finzer’s Slack post, the affected employees will receive “substantial severance” and healthcare coverage until 2023.
According to Finzer, the company raised $300 million in venture capital funding in January and intends to use the funds to hire 90 additional employees and establish a fund for creators. Finzer made no mention of the additional investor funds in his memo to staff.
This summer, Opensea joins a growing list of well-known cryptocurrency titans who have laid off workers. Coinbase laid off over 1,100 employees last month, citing the crypto winter and the challenging economic climate. In June, approximately 200 BlockFi employees and 260 Crypto.com employees were laid off, just months after the company agreed to a $700 million naming rights agreement for the Los Angeles Staples Centre.
