TL;DR Breakdown
- The CFO of Lyft, Brian Roberts, has moved to NFT marketplace.
- OpenSea facing criticism due to this move.
With the growth of the NFT sector, several new platforms and marketplaces are making their way into the industry. Each one of them is trying to attract more and more potential investors and clients. However, OpenSea remains one of the most popular and reliable NFT marketplaces in the growing industry. It was founded in 2017 and entertained one of the largest NFT audiences.
OpenSea offers over 80 million NFTs to more than 700,000 users. Up until now, it has also processed over $10 billion in its gross merchandise value, which indicates the popularity of the network. However, more popularity attracts more criticism as well. Just recently, OpenSea announced that it is hiring a Chief Financial Officer for its latest sign web3 startup. This is the first time the organization is hiring someone for this post.
The web3 startup is expected to attract more revenue and talent into the organization, and therefore, this new hiring will assist OpenSea in managing these additional funds. However, despite this latest assignment, the NFT marketplace is receiving sheer criticism and backlash from its consumers and the general cryptocurrency community.
Who is Brian Roberts?
Brian Roberts is a known name in the digital world, as he has worked as the CFO of Lyft for almost seven years. Lyft is a renowned ride-hailing app; however, Roberts has now moved to the NFT marketplace. Upon hiring, he expressed his gratitude in these words, ‘I have not been this excited about something in a very long time. It reminds me of 1995 eBay.’ Roberts also said that he ‘loves Lyft,’ but the growth in the NFT and the web3 sector made it a comfortable career decision for him.
In his decorated career, Brian Roberts also worked for the likes of Microsoft and Walmart. He was linked with some big names in the corporate world. Now, like many of his colleagues and partners, he has also hopped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Many of his fellows also left executive posts at companies like Facebook over the last year to join the growing crypto sector. He also said that ‘when you have a company growing as fast as this one, you would be foolish not to think about it going public.’
Criticism around the future plans of OpenSea
Many representatives from OpenSea have admitted that the organization is in talks with several investors in order to raise funds for the company. They are looking for new investors to add to the pool that already contains the likes of Founders Fund, Coinbase, A16Z, and Blockchain Capital. The discussions are now carried out by the founder of OpenSea Devin FInzer and the newly hired Brian Roberts.
Roberts is well-known to have led Lyft through phases of rapid growth with a successful IPO and adjusted profitability. He plans to strike new partnerships for OpenSea so that the new ventures could help the organization to grow in the NFT sector.
However, several experts are criticizing OpenSea for going down the IPO route because it means that the company will enlist new investment banks while making an entry into the stock market. They believe that this goes against the spirit of decentralization which is a major attribute of the crypto world.
Many experts also questioned why OpenSea is not planning to issue its own governance token. This token could help facilitate and reward the community of the network as it is a common practice in several crypto projects. Even though launching a token is not that easy, it could help the organization grow immensely. Nonetheless, the NFT marketplace has now pursued its path for an IPO, and it is yet to be seen how this decision folds out for them in the near future.
