OpenSea Says SEA Is Coming Q1 2026

Morning Minute is a each day e-newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The evaluation and opinions expressed are his personal and don’t essentially replicate these of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

At the moment’s high information:

• Crypto majors rebound over the weekend, Bitcoin again at $110,700
• Stripe’s Tempo raises $500M at $5B valuation
• Mr Beast information trademark for crypto change and funds service
• Huobi founder Li Lin shares plans for $1B ETH TreasuryCo
• OpenSea founder Devin Finzer shares SEA token plans, buybacks

🌊 OpenSea Says SEA Is Coming Q1 2026

OpenSea lastly gave some affirmation on its SEA token launch.

And it appears to be like like people are going to have to attend a bit longer…

📌 What Occurred

After years of resisting token stress, OpenSea introduced SEA is coming Q1 2026 on Friday.

CEO Devin Finzer made it official in a tweet, saying OpenSea has quietly hit $2.6 billion in buying and selling quantity this month – however over 90% of that wasn’t NFTs.

It was token buying and selling.

“NFTs had been chapter one for us,” he wrote, framing SEA as a part of OpenSea’s transformation from a collectibles app right into a broader crypto change.

The SEA token will launch subsequent quarter with half the provision allotted to the group by way of a declare program tied to previous and future platform exercise (OGs and present merchants each rewarded).

OpenSea additionally mentioned 50% of its income will go towards shopping for again SEA tokens, a mechanism that straight hyperlinks platform development to token demand.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“That is just the start of our transformation from ‘NFT market’ to ‘commerce all the pieces.’” — Devin Finzer, CEO

“OpenSea simply pulled off a full rebuild submit–NFT crash — contemporary group, brand-new tech stack, and a manner larger imaginative and prescient for what’s subsequent.” – Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, on X

🧠 Why It Issues

OpenSea doesn’t need to be an NFT market anymore. It desires to be the on-chain buying and selling layer for all the pieces.

And those that have excessive hopes for a possible SEA airdrop needs to be rooting on that transformation.

Blur got here and ate OpenSea’s lunch just a few years in the past.

Then Magic Eden took the highlight through the Ordinals and Runes meta.

OpenSea needed to do a complete reset to turn out to be related once more and reclaim market share – and so they did precisely that.

By means of their newest incentive packages, they’ve been in a position to reclaim the highest spot in NFT market share and have considerably raised the amount traded on their platform (now 90% token buying and selling).

And positive, a number of that quantity is probably going farming – however a few of it is going to stay.

With 50% of the SEA tokens going to farmers and 25% up entrance, we all know they’ll have ongoing incentives packages past TGE.

Which implies volumes will keep elevated for a number of months. Which implies extra income for OpenSea. Which implies extra token buybacks (they promised 50% of income for buybacks).

It’s the strongest arrange a possible SEA token has had because the 2021 NFT growth.

And for these hoping it will have are available This fall – be affected person. It needs to be definitely worth the wait…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A number of Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are inexperienced and rebounding after a late week selloff; BTC +3% at $110,700, ETH +3% at $4,030, BNB +1% at $1,110, SOL +2% at $192
• Floki (+18%), LINK (+10%), SNX (+10%) and ZEC (+10%) led high movers
• Stripe’s Tempo raised $500M at a $5B valuation and employed Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist
• MrBeast filed logos for a crypto change and fee app
• John Bollinger famous potential “W” bottoms on each ETH and SOL charts
• Arthur Hayes is launching a $250M fund known as Maelstrom Fairness Fund I to purchase mid-sized crypto corporations in buying and selling infrastructure and information analytics
• Japan’s three greatest banks plan to concern a shared stablecoin pegged to currencies just like the yen to digitize interbank funds

In Company Treasuries / ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs noticed $366.6M in internet outflows on Friday, with ETH seeing $232.2M in outflows
• Huobi founder Li Lin plans to launch a $1B ETH TreasuryCo

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are inexperienced together with majors, although nonetheless down 5-10% on the week; DOGE +3%, Shiba +2%, PEPE +4%, PENGU +1%, BONK +5%, TRUMP +1%, SPX +6%, and FARTCOIN +1%
• Pump Enjoyable’s PUMP token rebounded 20% off its native backside, again to $4B FDV (and ICO value)
• BSC had 13 of the highest 15 memes by each day quantity, with 币安人生 leaping 60% to $255M on $70M quantity main the best way
• Alpha Enviornment led Solana high movers, leaping 270% to $7M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Right here’s a rundown of main token, protocol and airdrop information from the day:

• OpenSea introduced its SEA token launch for Q1 2026 with half for the group
• Avalanche hinted at a possible social leaderboard with token rewards
• MegaETH purchased again 4.75% of its token provide from early traders
• Infinex founder mentioned the march to TGE has begun

🚚 What is going on in NFTs?

Right here is the record of different notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders had been principally flat over the weekend; Punks -1% at 42 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 7.35, BAYC +1% at 7.5 ETH; Hypurr’s +1% at 1,250 HYPE
• CrypToadz (+13%) and Mocaverse (+13%) had been high movers
• Chimpers turned the newest undertaking to get a Technique token, with CHMPSTR holding at $2.5M after its Friday debut
• PNKSTR rebounded 15% over the weekend again to $80M, now holding 31 CryptoPunks