World's Largest NFT Market: 4 Years Established, 70 Group Members, Over $ 13 Billion Market Value

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OpenSea is currently one of the most talked about blockchain startups in Silicon Valley.

On January 4, OpenSea, the world's largest NFT trading platform, announced the acquisition of new capital led by investment firms Paradigm and Coatue Management. It was valued at $ 133 million. The new funds will be used to develop products, improve the user experience and invest in the NFT and Web3.0 community.

Founded in 2017, OpenSea is a company that provides users with services to query, write and distribute NFT (Non-Fungible Token) tools. At the same time, the NFT industry developed by the company is now the largest NFT industry. World.

In July 2021, OpenSea announced a $ 100 million Series B funding (after a $ 1.5 billion investment) led by a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), and has since started to seek value in the tens of thousands. of dollars. Over the next six months or so, the company's workforce grew from over 40 to over 70, and the value of the company increased six-fold. Two co-founders, Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah each hold 18.5% of the capital. .

This is visual news and it means that competition from cryptocurrencies has once again won over investment firms. According to the report, OpenSea is now one of the most trusted blockchain startups in Silicon Valley.

Complete 95% of the NFT activity

The market share of existing NFT trading platforms is diverse.

According to data from Dune Analytics, OpenSea's market share has generally increased from over 61% in July 2021 to 95% at the end of December 2021, ranking first and second only for OpenSea's SuperRare in all products and consumers. . It's only 1/24 and 1/6 of OpenSea.

With the growth in market share, the packaging industry's monthly platform will reach more than $ 3 billion in August 2021, compared to the monthly GMV of some e-commerce companies. The main product on display on the platform is NFT, jokingly referred to as “vignettes,” and the agents represent the Bored Ape Yacht Club with a total value of 843,613 ETH (around $ 3.22 billion). ) and the total value of 670,236 ETH (approx. $ 2.55 million.) available. $ 1 billion)) of cryptopunk.

Not only that, but actors like rapper Jay-Z and NBA star Stephen Curry are consumers of “thumbnails” as well.

These NFTs are like "thumbnails", some representing graphics, digital devices, some gaming devices (representing gaming devices), some digital IDs ... Most smart ERC-721s are contract compliant.

In blockchain history, the most popular project that uses the ERC-721 protocol is Crypto Kitties. The project was born during the cattle market in 2017. The project supported many people, including two created by OpenSea, to remember the NFTs. It is a project. Devin Pinzer and Alex Atala.

Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah are very excited about the NFT track, because the ERC-721 allows "to integrate digital devices into models". In November 2017, OpenSea was launched, near which Rare Bits was created, both focused on sites related to "ebay". Additionally, OpenSea only raised $ 2 million in venture capital funds, including Confirmation, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, and Blockchain Capital after Rare Bits raised $ 6 million. ~

Shortly after the creation of two similar projects, the secondary blockchain industry entered the bear market. In the bearish market, Rare Bits adopted the concept of provisioning costs (understood only as the costs incurred by the Ethereum network) to customers without having to pay the initial price, when OpenSea requested a 1% discount in 2018, i did it. . Devin also said OpenSea will retain a team of seven for most of 2020.

In order to survive, Rare Bits is no longer confined to the NFT arena after expanding its business to enable virtual device trading, while OpenSea continues to focus on NFT tracking.

By the end of 2019, OpenSea had hit a new high of $ 1.8 million in monthly market share. At the same time, a $ 2.1 million venture capital investment was made in OpenSea with investors including Animoca Brands, gumi Cryptos, Stanford StartX and David Pazdan of MetaMask. That same year, the Rarebits finally disappeared without waiting for the new money.

The death of a competitor left OpenSea as unreliable as the NFT industry at a time when there was not much market and Rarebit had enough capital ahead of it. In addition, OpenC has over 4,000 monthly users and only $ 1 million in monthly sales during the 26 months of launch.

The platform's revenue is insufficient, and the impact of the 2020 spread has left the two OpenSea developers without a solution.

In the public eye, the NFT bull market is 2021, but as co-founder and CEO John Crain recalls in early November 2019, due to crazy bets on “Edward Snowden - Variant 02 - Decentral Eyes”, crypto artist -cash. Coldie I think the NFT industry I was in is hotter.

According to the official OpenC blog, NFT industry sales in the first half of 2020 have increased 20-fold in just six months. During this time, new competitors appeared once on the market.

So what makes OpenSea different? In addition to data and resources previously tapped into the NFT market, OpenSea is also developing a 'Bomb King' in Collection Manager 2020, allowing users to create and sell NFTs for free without having to pay for it. gasoline.

This feature looks so mundane now that it's not worth marketing as a feature. But it was special back then. These features are similar to how Ethereum might be released to the business community and Uniswap of the DeFi market, providing the tools to support the upcoming emergence of the NFT market.

Crypto-based industry analyst Delphi Digital described this as one of the decisions that ultimately led to the management of OpenSea. Access restrictions are minimal, and long-term developers can easily sign up. This approach expands product development, attracting consumers and businesses to primary and secondary markets. If Uniswap is the market for all tokens, OpenSea is the market for all tokens. NF. "

In 2021, the NFT industry will explode. OpenSea has won $ 23 million in Series A funding and $ 100 million Series B, combined, led by A16Z. With sufficient capital, the group has grown to more than 70 people, the market leader. The market volume has over $ 3 billion, and monthly users have exceeded 100,000.

IPO rumors anger users

From a business standpoint, OpenSea has been successful, and from a false business standpoint, there is no doubt that success.

However, OpenSea has recently received rave reviews from users, and there have been rumors that OpenSea will go public a month ago.

Brian Roberts, Lyft's former chief financial officer in the United States, appeared in a Bloomberg report shortly after joining OpenSea, saying, “I didn't think about going public when the company was growing rapidly. The goal of the IPO, as in the past, he had no work experience but led Lyft to complete the IPO.

This shocked OpenSea users. Compared to some NFT trading platforms that use tokens to guide user trading behavior, OpenSea officials have not been able to declare a token entitlement, and many users have worked tirelessly to support the OpenSea business environment. the start of the plan.

In the past, the market has speculated that the platform provides tokens for the drop based on the number of businesses and active users, so some users who are withdrawing their order to get more drops have said: " OpenC products are not special. No, "he threatened. . "You are losing the support of the community." , the stature of OpenSea is not guaranteed. "

Not too long ago, Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter CEO of Web 3.0, suggested that the Web 3.0 project should not involve capital investment, and this view was confirmed by the industry. The development of OpenSea informs the public that they need a commercial ROI, which means that OpenSea may not be a Web3.0 project. So how often do you listen to communities and users?

Consumer complaints follow distractions. Brian Roberts announced on December 8, 2021 that there is a big difference between thinking about what the final IPO would look like and actively planning an IPO. In addition, OpenSea does not plan to go public. He seeks community involvement.

Although this specification has helped improve business performance for some, there are still users looking for alternatives to OpenSea. On the other hand, users are actively looking for alternatives with increasing interest in distributing NFT trading platforms and NFT trading platforms in vertical position, while NFT enthusiasts in the community are trying. Take advantage of OpenSea users to switch to OpenSea users.

The above metrics haven't hit true yet, but the market is starting to consider the OpenSea moat. Some think OpenSea can change, others think OpenSea has a gap.

A blogger with the username W3.Hitchhiker said OpenSea is the most successful NFT platform on the market, and SevenX Ventures founder Li Rongbin said OpenSea has become a higher rank in the NFT industry. Much of the dirty work and heavy workload is invisible to most users, but this combination and practice has become an industry standard.

W3.Hitchhiker also wrote his thoughts on OpenSea Moat, claiming that the water in this phase is OpenSea Moat. “OpenSea is a strong, two-pronged business similar to Taobao, but OpenSea's customers and vendors are different from Taobao. The platform is real, so the advantages of the network will be more powerful. OpenSea's products are illegal, they provide the design. “Unlike platforms that do this, the trading process is easy. The liquidity of the NFT market itself is not good, and the price of decentralized liquidity is too high relative to the market, making it difficult for other enemies to steal the "liquidity" of OpenSea. "

Interestingly, three years ago Tesla co-founder Musk bombed Buffett's "moat" theory, claiming that innovation could prevent enemy invasion if it was quick enough, and Buffett replied that the old technology will not destroy any industry. .

Although OpenSea is the largest NFT software industry, it still has to keep working to manage its capital is always looking for new opportunities in this area, and new clients will come forward. .