Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea is working on an upgrade known as OpenSea 2.0, aiming to enhance user experience and differentiate NFT categories as use cases evolve. Currently, NFTs are displayed uniformly on OpenSea, regardless of whether they are game tokens or event tickets. The upgrade seeks to change this, offering a more customized marketplace interface suited to various use cases, according to CEO Devin Finzer.
The upgrade responds to the rising popularity of NFT marketplaces like Blur and Tensor, which offer professional trading experiences. OpenSea plans to facilitate access to a professional trading platform, enable seamless transitions between collector and advanced views, and improve detection of fake NFT collections and malicious URLs to address security concerns.
While Finzer did not comment on the discontinuation of mandatory royalty fees for NFT creators, he did not disclose whether OpenSea plans to reinstate a mandatory royalty program in the future. He also highlighted the growing use of the Solana Blockchain for NFTs and the increasing popularity of Bitcoin Blockchain’s Ordinals, despite maintaining optimism about Ethereum as the preferred blockchain for NFTs, especially with Layer 2 networks’ improvements in transaction costs and speed.
Despite the spotlight on ETFs, Finzer downplayed Bitcoin as a significant NFT option, suggesting that applications built on the Bitcoin Blockchain would likely be limited to art-type use cases. He emphasized the need to look beyond viewing NFTs as mere collectible images and focus on creating compelling use cases for these tokens.
NFT sales globally dropped by 63% to $8.7 billion last year, despite a notable volume increase between October and November. In contrast, Bitcoin saw a significant rise of nearly 160% in 2023. OpenSea faced challenges, including the conviction of a former product manager for insider trading and criticism for eliminating mandatory royalty fees for NFT creators, leading to a 50% staff reduction in November. New entrants like Blur, OKX NFT Marketplace, and Magic Eden have recently outpaced OpenSea in transaction volumes, but Finzer cautions that transaction volumes can be misleading due to some marketplaces incentivizing activity with their own tokens.
