Opensea reclaims NFT market share, surging to 71.5% after SEA token announcement

Opensea has experienced somewhat of a resurgence lately, with its share of Ethereum NFT marketplace volume standing at 71.5% this past week. For reference, just four weeks prior, Opensea had a 25.5% share of Ethereum NFT marketplace volume.

The bulk of this increase came this past week, when its share jumped from 42.4% to 71.5%, mainly taking away from Blur’s share of the total NFT volume.

The cause of this spike in Opensea volume is likely the announcement of the platform’s long-awaited token, $SEA.

Opensea formally announced its $SEA token on Feb. 13, and since then, the platform has facilitated an average of $17.4 million in NFT trading volume per day. For reference, in the five days prior to the token announcement, Opensea averaged just $3.47 million in volume.

The number of trades on Opensea experienced a spike as well, as it facilitated an average of 14,700 transactions per day post-token announcement. In the five days prior to the $SEA announcement, this figure averaged just 6,100 trades per day.

While little is known so far about the specifics of the $SEA token, it is confirmed that U.S. users are qualified and that historical platform usage will be an important factor when determining the airdrop allocation, which should rejoice users who used the platform extensively during peak NFT era in 2021.

This is an excerpt from The Block's Data & Insights newsletter. Dig into the numbers making up the industry's most thought-provoking trends.