OpenSea’s CEO sees greater opportunity for NFT use cases to grow (w/ Devin Finzer)

This year, Chain Reaction is doing monthly series diving into different topics and themes in crypto. To start things off, this month we’re focusing on NFTs. 

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Devin Finzer, the CEO of NFT marketplace OpenSea.

He co-founded OpenSea in 2017 and it quickly climbed to become one of the most well known – and well funded – NFT marketplaces. Two years ago, it raised $300 million in a Series C round at a $13.3 billion post-money valuation, bringing its total capital raised to over $400 million. Some of its investors include firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm as well as celebrities like Kevin Durant and Ashton Kutcher. 

Despite the NFT market’s trading volume falling from all time highs in late 2021 early 2022, OpenSea is still pushing forward even though other NFT marketplaces have popped up and challenged their dominance.

Jacquelyn and Devin discuss the importance of web3 games integrating NFTs, Web2.0 firms launching their own digital collectibles and challenges the marketplace faces.

They also dive into: 

• Big use cases for NFTs
• Company’s future mission 
• Retaining community members
• Gaining market share and trading volume

(0:00) Welcome to Chain Reaction

(3:36) Launching OpenSea before NFTs took off

(7:55) Expanding NFTs core product categories

(9:44) NFT games to drive adoption

(11:39) Post NFT-boom industry atmosphere

(14:37) Keeping Retail investors engaged in NFTs 

(19:30) Staying competitive in the NFT marketplace space

(20:24) Rapid Fire

(27:01) NFT use cases in 2024

(28:20) OpenSea’s core mission

(30:15) Advice for people in the crypto industry 

Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.