OpenSea To Expand Beyond Ethereum, Eyes 'Broadening' of Marketplace – CEO

Publikováno: 21.9.2021

Speaking at crypto research firm Messari’s Mainnet 2021 event in New York City on Monday, the CEO stated that expansion to other blockchains is a priority for the NFT marketplace going forward. The existing integrations with Polygon (MATIC) and Klaytn (KLAY), Finzer said, are a step on the way to a multi-chain future, but even more alternatives will likely be available for NFT collectors going forward.

Asked by Messari CEO Ryan Selkis for more details as to what OpenSea will look like in ten years, Finzer said that he believes “there will be a broad expansion” in terms of both the number of blockchains that are supported, and in terms of the types of NFTs that can be bought and sold on the marketplace.

The metaverse, gaming, and virtual worlds are all interesting directions within the NFT space that are likely to continue to grow, Finzer explained, while adding that although OpenSea “will be the broadest and best marketplace,” there will be other marketplaces as well.

Further in the talk, the CEO, who founded OpenSea in late 2017 and built it through the entire 2018 bear market, opened up about what he sees as the necessary ingredient in order to succeed with a new idea in crypto.

“We relied on conviction and worked on it for a long time,” Finzer said, adding that an important thing in order to succeed in a frontier technology like crypto is to “just find a problem that you want to work on for a really, really long time.”

For OpenSea, Finzer said the conviction came from the realization that NFTs allowed people “to belong to a tribe,” which is something a lot of people like. “There weren’t a lot of users,” the CEO said about the early days of the platform, but he added that the team still maintained enough conviction to make it through the bear market.

Lastly, Finzer also admitted that OpenSea has recently “gone through a lot of growing pains,” which has caused some difficulties for users. However, the CEO promised that these issues are being addressed - naming for instance the new mobile app that initially couldn’t trade NFTs as an example of a product that will be upgraded to offer the full NFT trading functionality shortly.

This platform found itself in quite a controversy last week when it had been accused of insider trading, which the platform subsequently confirmed. They then implemented several policies that forbid its team members from trading collections that are featured or promoted by the company, among other restrictions.

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