OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, joins the list of companies feeling the sting of the crypto market downturn.
On Thursday, the company’s CEO Devin Finzer tweeted that OpenSea is letting go about 20% of its team and attached a note that he shared with employees.
“For those leaving us, we’ll be providing generous severance, healthcare coverage into 2023, and accelerated equity vesting for those who haven’t hit their cliff,” Finzer wrote. “We’ll also be helping with job placement and opening our personal networks to support them however we can.”
As for reasoning behind the decision, Finzer cited the so-called crypto winter—an industry term to describe cyclical downturns—and the macroeconomy.
“We need to prepare the company for the possibility of a prolonged downturn. The changes we’re making today put us in a position to maintain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios (5 years at current volume), and give us confidence that we will only have to go through this once,” he wrote.
Alongside OpenSea, other companies like Crypto.com, BlockFi, and Gemini have also recently gone through layoffs.
In response to a request for comment, an OpenSea spokesperson said, “It is clear that the current macroeconomic factors and global unrest will continue to have broad-reaching implications across Web3,” and reiterated Finzer’s pledge to assist employees who had been let go.