OpenSea chief executive officer (CEO) Devin Finzer sought to assuage concerns over the uncertainty in the non-fungible token (NFT ) market as a string of scandals hit the industry, the Financial Times reported.
The 32-year-old CEO told the Times that the recent “setbacks” in the crypto industry, referencing the crypto exchange FTX 's bankruptcy filing in November, contributed to a decline in the value of digital assets .
Finzer admitted that OpenSea’s value has skyrocketed due to the hype in the market over the past two years.
OpenSea is one of the world’s largest marketplaces for NFTs, which are online digital collectibles or artworks using the same blockchain technology as cryptos.
Finzer said NFTs still have a “promising future”, asserting that people would continue to spend money on digital assets in the coming years.
“It is not necessarily the case that NFTs will always be bought and sold denominated in cryptocurrency as they are today,” he said.
He added, “There are a variety of reasons why that makes sense in the current ecosystem, but as we get broader and more accessible, there is no reason that NFTs could not be denominated in US dollars.”
According to data from a user named "rchen" on Dune Analytics, OpenSea’s monthly trading volume in Ether cryptocurrency fell from a $4.9 billion peak in January last year to $253 million in November, a 95 per cent drop.
The New York-based company hasn’t disclosed its financial data, but according to the Financial Times, OpenSea’s daily trading volume of NFTs dropped from a record 2.3 million in January to 740,000 last month, a 68 per cent decrease.
Donald Trump NFT's Floor Price Plummets 80 Per Cent
According to Cryptoslate, Trump Digital Trading Cards, a set of NFTs held by the former US president, lost 80 per cent of its value as the Ethereum (ETH) floor price dropped from $0.84 10 days ago to $0.16.
OpenSea data shows that 15,115 owners hold 45,000 NFTs, equivalent to a 34 per cent unique owner rate, Cryptoslate observed.
During the admission period into sweepstakes, there were 45,000 NFTs available for minting. Trump started his collection on December 15. Each NFT is $99 during the entrance period, which currently equals $0.083 ETH.
