The OpenSea journey has been rough and controversial. The startup, fostered by Y Combinator, quickly became a tech unicorn and an NFT sector monopolist. By 2025 the OpenSea timeline became a “rise and fall” story.
On Feb. 13, the New York-based company announced the launch of a new version, OS2. The tweaks address some of the concerns while ignoring others.
The NFT (non-fungible token) market is still alive, despite losing momentum. The long-term trend is far from being inspiring. Nevertheless, in 2024, the overall NFT trading volume reached $8.8 billion. The launch of OS2 is aimed at flipping the trend, which is hardly an easy task.
OpenSea and the NFT market crisis
Following the NFT market decline in 2022 media outlets started to question whether NFTs are dead. In recent years, the sector received a lot of negativity due to multiple scams (users lost tens of millions of dollars), security breaches, insider trading, and alleged hypocrisy of those who claim NFTs are about art and not just a money grab.
NFTs have been criticized both by crypto bros and crypto skeptics. Some in the crypto community think NFTs did the crypto sector a disservice, distracting people from innovation while pushing hard-to-swallow narratives about selling JPEGs for millions of dollars and exposing newbies to risky investments. Many people who didn’t know much about crypto began to use the terms “crypto” and “NFTs” interchangeably, associating both with frauds, risks, gambling, etc.
Nearly any accusation pointed at NFTs more or less applies to OpenSea as the dominating marketplace in the sector (boasting a 90% market share at its peak, dropping to 33% in 2025). According to the Verge article, a former company employee likened all the fraud, money grab, and craze that was going on across the platform in 2022 to a “blood orgy.”
The crypto bear market worsened the company’s wealth as it stored funds in Ether (ETH). It saw a severe price decline in 2022. The rise of Blur and Magic Edan, the strong competitor platforms, contributed to the faster fall of OpenSea. The company was looking for new directions and ways to revitalize. At the very same time, it was continuing a series of unexpected layoffs. Additionally, the SEC unleashed a battle on NFTs and OpenSea was one of the targets.
While the NFT market left the headlines and shrunk substantially, OpenSea has turned from a monopolist to a shaken survivor. The platform revamp was vital and, finally, we will witness a new version of OpenSea.
What will change with the launch of OS2?
The platform got a total update. The main direction is switching to a web3 realm. Now, it allows the trade of both fungible and non-fungible tokens. OS2 seamlessly works across various chains, eliminating the need to bridge or swap tokens. The long-anticipated launch of an OpenSea token ($SEA) is aimed at fostering long-term sustainability.
Announcements were met positively, with users and beta testers sharing their first impressions. Some say they lack the previous features like searching for sales by trait, but generally, the update was met with support.
Critics blame security issues and plagiarism for ruining OpenSea’s user experience and the official announcement hardly touches on these issues. Moreover, OpenSea founder Devin Finzer rather emphasized a more anarchic approach on social media.
“The NFT bull market changed us,” Finzer said. “We got too corporate, too web2, and let fear of risk outweigh building for users.”
Considering how bad OpenSea handled various security issues during its best days, the absence of the safety segment in the announcement is disappointing.
It seems that the switch to web3 may be an attempt to outsource protection to end users themselves. Hopefully, updates on security will follow soon.
Probably the decreased market share of OpenSea and the overall decline of the NFT craze may help the company facilitate a safer and healthier user experience.
The crypto-friendly climate — with Paul Atkins nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — sets a nice background, too. It remains to be seen whether the OpenSea revamp has the potential to become a comeback story.
