Brian Roberts – a tech veteran and former Lyft executive – will join OpenSea as the project’s first CFO. He admitted that he saw a lot of potential in the non-fungible token industry and promised to turn OpenSea into a publicly traded company.
‘I Voted with My Feet’
According to a recent Bloomberg report, Brian Roberts has agreed to become OpenSea’s first Chief Financial Officer. The American economist revealed that he made the decision instantly as the NFT marketplace is an exciting project that looks like eBay in the mid-90s:
“I voted with my feet. I haven’t been so excited about something for a very long time. It reminds me of eBay from 1995.
Not long ago, Devin Fenzer – Founder and CEO of OpenSea – asserted that the firm is looking for additional funds from various investors. Roberts noted that OpenSea is already a profitable company, not needing to raise more cash. However, the firm could employ the financing to acquire entities, strike partnerships, and expand further into the NFT space.
“I’ve seen a lot of P&L (profit and loss accounts), but I’ve never seen P&L like this,” Roberts added.
The CFO outlined OpenSea’s success throughout the year. While the leading NFT peer-to-peer marketplace had many highlights in 2021, arguably its most significant achievement was displaying art collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Not so long ago, universe giant NFT exceeded $ 10 billion in total transaction volumes. By comparison, the total volume for all of 2020 was only 21 million. Having mentioned this rapid advance, Roberts expects to see OpenSea soon as a publicly traded company:
“When you have a company growing as fast as this one, you’d be foolish not to think about it going public. It would be well-received in the public market given its growth.”
Christie’s teams up with OpenSea
At the end of November, OpenSea entered into a partnership with the legendary Christie’s auction house. As a result, the latter will organize a series of auctions held on the world’s leading NFT marketplace.
The collaboration enabled bidding and payments to be made using the Ethereum network. The first collection features a “cutting-edge selection of collectibles” pulled together by Christie’s Head of Digital and Online Sales Noah Davis and curator Ronnie Pirovino.
Featured artists include Andre Oshea, Alpha Centauri Kid, Ash Thorp, Baeige, EtherRock, Joshua Davis, KESH, Krista Kim, Maciej Kuciara, Mad Dog Jones, and more.
This March, Christie’s concluded the sale of its first non-fungible token – the record-breaking “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” by Beeple (sold for a whopping $69 million).
