OpenSea goes multichain after 98% drop in volume

As soon as one of many largest NFT marketplaces and a staunch supporter of Ethereum’s ERC-721 protocol, OpenSea has determined to go multi-blockchain, conduct an Preliminary Coin Providing (ICO)-style airdrop, and attempt to recoup losses from its 98% decline in buying and selling volumes.

In an announcement right now, the trade stated it’s engaged on an airdrop of its new SEA tokens, remodeling its web site, and including deeper assist for over a dozen blockchains.

OpenSea can also be including assist for cross-blockchain NFT purchases, resembling shopping for a Solana NFT utilizing a non-Solana fee technique. It’s additionally decreasing its market charges to 0.5% and swap charges to $0 for its OS2 Open Beta.

The trade achieved unicorn standing as an early startup, driving a wave of buying and selling exercise that peaked at $476 million on Could 1, 2022, following the launch of Bored Ape Yacht Membership’s Otherdeed metaverse land.

Immediately, buying and selling volumes have declined 98% from that determine and infrequently exceed single-digit hundreds of thousands.

Three years because the glory days

On virtually each related metric, the multi-year decline is clear. In January 2022, OpenSea boasted month-to-month NFT gross sales of over 5 million. By January 2025, nonetheless, gross sales have been down 80%.

OpenSea’s royalty charges have been $268 million in January 2022, but failed to succeed in even $4 million final month.

The corporate is hopeful that its new ICO airdrop and platform redesign will assist it get better. OpenSea laid off 56% of its workforce after receiving a Wells Discover from the Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) in August 2024.

That Wells Discover expressed concern about potential unregistered securities on the platform.

Learn extra: NFT wash commerce accounts for six.5% of every day gross sales quantity on OpenSea

OpenSea has additionally confronted stiff competitors from different NFT marketplaces like Blur and Magic Eden. Magic Eden by the way noticed some success with including different NFT-supporting blockchains like Ethereum and Polygon after initially supporting solely Polygon.

This might clarify the trade’s determination to incorporate a considerable variety of new blockchains in OpenSea 2.0.

General, OpenSea is solely struggling to cope with a multi-year decline in NFT recognition. Nowadays, most merchants merely choose fungible memecoins relatively than non-fungible media.

Its web site relaunch and token providing is unlikely to alter this international pattern.