OpenSA boss tries to distance NFTs from the cryptocrisy

The managing director of OpenSea, the world's leading non-funglic token marketplace, has tried to distance NFTs of cryptocurrencies, since the sector is hit by the episodes of a series of scandals.

Devin Finzer, 32, said the Financial Times that the crypto industry has experienced "some setbacks lately", and referred to the case of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange, which went bankrupt in November and contributed to leaving digital assets.

OpenSea increased in value, as online collectors and digital art named NFTS, which were based on the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies have become a hypeg driven market in the past two years.

But the head of the company based in New York insisted that NFTs will keep a brilliant future, since he believes that consumers will continue to spend real money to buy digital images and display them in their houses and in virtual online rooms.

"It is not necessarily that NFTs are always bought and sold in cryptocurrency as it is today," he said. "There are a variety of reasons why this makes sense in the current ecosystem, but since we are becoming more wider and more accessible, there is no reason why NFTs could not at least be on US dollars."

OpenSea has recorded a decline in the monthly trade volume in cryptocurrency from a maximum of $ 4.9 billion in January last year by 95 percent to $ 253 million in November, according to a user called "Rchen" to Dune Analytics. The daily number of NFTS sold on the platform in ether, fell from a maximum of 2.3 million in January by 68 percent to 740,000 in the past month.

"NFTS do not exist in a vacuum, there is the general macroclima that has changed dramatically and that affects consumer expenses and the wider cryptoclim that is currently experiencing a winter," said Finzer.

The company replaced 20 percent of the staff in July, with Finzer expecting a “longer downturn” and leaving Openea with around 300 employees.

Finzer claims that the company has a “healthy catwalk”, since it has collected $ 423 million in several financing rounds since 2021, in which the risk capital providers have invested Coatue and Andreessen Horowitz. Angels, including reddit founder Alex Ohanian, actor Ashton Kutcher and singer Shawn Mendes, also took part in previous rounds.

OpenSea has raised the majority of his capital, $ 300 million, and the company announced with $ 13.3 billion in January of this year.

NFTS use blockchain technology to certify ownership of a digital asset that is recorded in an unchangeable transaction book. They use the same technology based on cryptocurrencies and are usually bought and sold in cryptocurrencies such as ether.

This year the cryptomarkt suffered a number of scandals, including the collapse of the StableCoin Terrausd and a marketwide crash in which the price of popular tokens such as Bitcoin crashed. A number of laws are introduced to regulate the volatile industry, including the British law on financial services and markets and the EU regulation on markets for crypto-assets.

governments and law enforcement authorities worldwide also decide whether NFTs should be registered and disclosed as financial security.

"It is really important that supervisory authorities and government officials understand that this is not the same as in the broader crypto industry, where the focus is on financial application," said Finzer.

He said that the value of NFTS should be decided after how people deal with it, be it through the use of token to take part in exclusive events, play games or to exhibit digital works of art in their houses.

"It is already that people use Instagram [to share NFTS] with their friends," said Finzer. "[In future] more and more of your property can be digital in contrast to physical art. At the moment it is perhaps Early Adopters who exhibit NFTs in their houses, but that could be something that happens more and more."