09/12/2021 OpenSea walks back on IPO plan following community backlash
OpenSeaâs new chief financial officer, Brian Roberts, faced a firestorm of complaints from the NFT community based on what he said was âinaccurately reportedâ comments.
OpenSeaâs new chief financial officer, Brian Roberts, faced a firestorm of complaints from the NFT community based on what he said was âinaccurately reportedâ comments.
The worldâs top nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, OpenSea, has denied it intends to pursue a public listing any time soon.
Chief financial officerBrian Robertssparked a public backlash this week when he toldBloombergthat âit would be foolish not to think about going public.â
The statement caused anuproaramong OpenSeaâs crypto nativeNFT community, many of whom see a public listing of the platform as a sellout to large institutionalinvestors. The vast majority of users on OpenSea executetransactions below $10,000at a time.
âSucks to hear @opensea is selling out and doing an IPO,âwroteTwitter user Punk_2070, complaining the community rather than VCs had driven its success.
âJust another reason why I canât wait for @Coinbase_NFT. If we are using corporate vehicles, we might as well use the one that wonât go down three times a week.â
Users also seemed miffed that a share market listing would put paid torumors the platform was planning to airdrop governance tokens to longstanding community members in a similar fashion to Uniswap.
But Roberts apparently sees the whole thing as a misunderstanding and blamed âinaccurate reporting on Openseaâs plansâ regarding going public in a Wednesdaytweet.
âLet me set the record straight: there is a big gap between thinking about what an IPO might eventually look like & actively planning one. We are not planning an IPO, and if we ever did, we would look to involve the community.â
Whether governed by the community or listed on the stock market, the NFT marketplace is hot property, recording$2 billionin trading volume from 1.1 million transactions and nearly 250,000 users over the past 30 days alone. Theplatform takes 2.5%from every trade, meaning it earned over $50 million in revenue in that time period.
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/opensea-walks-back-on-ipo-plan-following-community-backlash
