OpenSea IPO: users would have preferred a token

You are currently viewing OpenSea IPO: users would have preferred a token

OpenSea, the most popular NFT marketplace, is reportedly working with its new chief financial officer, Brian Roberts, to launch its own IPO. 

However, users who have supported the platform for years are criticizing the choice as they would have preferred the airdrop of its token. 

OpenSea IPO: planning with Brian Roberts

Yesterday, Bloomberg revealed that NFT’s top marketplace, OpenSea, has hired a new chief financial officer, Brian Roberts, former CFO of Lyft. 

“It’s official: my next chapter will be spent at OpenSea, helping dfinzer, xanderatallah, and team shape the future of NFTs, web3 and the digital economy”.

Roberts has guided Lyft through rapid growth to a successful IPO and regulated profitability. On OpenSea, Roberts pointed out that the NFT marketplace is already profitable and that while it doesn’t need to raise money, it could use the funding to acquire companies, forge partnerships and create joint ventures to further expand the use of NFTs in new industries. 

And for this very reason, Roberts said that they are planning the IPO of OpenSea. In this regard, he commented as follows:

“I’ve seen a lot of P&Ls (profit and loss statements) but I’ve never seen a P&L like this. When you have a company growing as fast as this one, you’d be foolish not to think about it going public. Would be well-received in the public market given its growth”.

Certainly, in the crypto sector, OpenSea would not be the first platform to be listed on the market. In April 2021, Coinbase, which had initially planned an IPO, also landed on the Nasdaq with a direct listing without issuing new shares. 

opensea-app
L’application Opensea

The discontent of users in the absence of tokens

On the social network of crypto-lovers, Twitter, the news of OpenSea’s forthcoming IPO was not exactly well-received, with many of the platform’s long-time supporters expecting OpenSea to issue and airdrop their own tokens.

Crypto-investor Lark Davis, for example, pointed out that OpenSea is closer to stock exchanges than to the crypto market. 

“OpenSea, the beating heart of #NFTs, is going to do an IPO. Must be feeling the heat from Coinbase, Binance, and FTX NFT markets. Also no token for users who have supported them for years”.

TrustSwap (SWAP) CEO Jeff Kirdeikis has also shared his disappointment with OpenSea’s choice, believing that users may soon switch to other trusted NFT marketplaces. 

“OpenSea going for an IPO instead of a community token, airdropped to their users, is about as tone-deaf as it gets. NFT platforms are a dime a dozen these days, and loyalty changes quickly”.

Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFiance Capital said: 

“Imagine being the largest and most successful NFT marketplace yet choosing to go for IPO instead of issuing [a] token”.

NFT marketplace: top 5 collections searched on Google

And so while OpenSea opts for the traditional stock market, disappointing its crypto-users, a few weeks ago, software company with a specialty in blockchain development, Bacancy, reported the top 5 NFT 2021 collections searched on Google. 

In first place is Axie Infinity with 706,000 global searches per month. Its collection has a total value of $3.06 billion and 1.06 million traders. 

Following in second and third place are respectively NBA Top Shot’s NFT collections with more than 396,000 global monthly searches and CryptoPunks (the famous collection that ignited the NFT mania) with 42,000.

Just below the podium in fourth place is the Art Blocks collection with 10,000 global monthly searches and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) with 3,900. 

The post OpenSea IPO: users would have preferred a token appeared first on The Cryptonomist.