Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) def had a moment earlier this year with a $69m digital art sale and an NBA highlights craze.
While the hype has slowed, that sweet, sweet cheddar is still pouring into the industry.
The latest: OpenSea — a peer-to-peer marketplace to buy and sell digital NFT art — just raised $100m at a $1.5B valuation (making the startup the 1st official NFT “unicorn,” a private company worth $1B+).
Despite the broader crypto sell-off in recent months, OpenSea is still en fuego, posting a record $160m in sales in June. (OpenSea takes a 2.5% cut of all transactions on the platform.)
CEO Devin Finzer claims the growth is due to a shift from digital art to “weird” use cases like gaming, event ticketing, and domain names.
… according to a recent tweet from Gen Z whisperer Tiffany Zhong:
OpenSea plans on expanding beyond the Ethereum blockchain, which has become expensive for casual users.
Other blockchains would make low-value projects like event ticketing and gaming more accessible, opening NFTs to a wider market.
To celebrate its new valuation (in the most meta way possible) OpenSea has a wide range of unicorn NFTs to choose from. Very on brand.