OpenSea CEO teases new platform built 'from the ground up' a year after talk of version 2.0

Prominent NFT marketplace OpenSea is aiming to reinvent itself as non-fungible token trading volumes have shrank to their lowest levels in more than three years.

On Monday, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer took to X to tease the reimagined platform. "We've been quietly cooking at OpenSea," he said. "To really innovate, sometimes you have to take a step back and reimagine everything. So we built a new OpenSea from the ground up."

OpenSea also promoted the new platform via its X account, saying it is set to launch in December. The marketplace also provided a link for joining the waitlist. The announcement of a new platform comes after almost exactly a year ago, OpenSea laid off half of its staff before Finzer said the company had begun work on "OpenSea 2.0."

After reigning as the dominant NFT marketplace for years, including during the bull run where tokens from popular collections like Bored Apes Yacht Club sometimes sold for millions of dollars, OpenSea was usurped in late 2022 by newcomer Blur. As the two have battled it out for market dominance, overall trading volumes have collapsed. OpenSea has recently managed to claw back some of its market share, but overall trading volumes are at their lowest in more than three years, according to The Block Data Dashboard.

One trend that Blur's overtaking of OpenSea appears to have demonstrated is that NFT traders became increasingly interested in using platforms that offered more than just basic buying and selling functionality. Blur's success also suggested traders wanted more sophisticated trading tools while it wooed new users with token rewards.

OpenSea's makeover comes at a time when it appears there is little hope for NFTs coming down the pike. In January of this year, NFT monthly trading volumes for Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens hit $868 million before sliding to $300 million in June and then $136 million last month, according to The Block Data Dashboard.