The crypto industry is bubbling with a quiet optimism these days—and with good reason. The price of Bitcoin has doubled since the start of the year, and last week's guilty verdict for Sam Bankman-Fried offered a much needed sense of closure from the ruinous events of 2022. But in one corner of the industry, Crypto Winter feels colder than ever.
I'm referring to the once-thriving NFT sector, which fell off a cliff last year and is still falling. How bad is it? Well, on Friday, OpenSea used the hype around the Bankman-Fried trial as cover for slipping out the bad news that it is laying off 50% of its staff. As a reminder, OpenSea is the flagship brand in the NFT world and early last year raised a $300 million Series C round at a $13.3 billion valuation. It would be a miracle if its value is even half that today.
