NFT market OpenSea now worth more than Kraken, Gemini, and eToro
OpenSea is worth more than crypto trading platforms Kraken, Gemini, and eToro after a recent $300-million funding round valued the NFT marketplace at $13.3 billion.
OpenSea added nearly $12 billion to its valuation since Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto wing valued it at $1.5 billion last July, noted TechCrunch.
Tech investor Coatue and crypto-focused venture capitalist Paradigm participated in the round. According to OpenSea chief exec Devin Finzer, the company will use the money raised in its Series C to:
- speed up product development,
- improve customer support and safety,
- invest in the wider NFT and Web3 community,
- grow OpenSea’s own team.
The New York-headquartered startup reportedly processed $2.4 billion worth of transactions over the past month alone. Finzer boasted a “600x increase” in volume in the past year in OpenSea’s blog.
OpenSea also raked trading fees worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 2021, having shaken off an insider trading scandal that surfaced last September.
OpenSea swims with big crypto fish
OpenSea’s $13-billion valuation means it’s $4.5 billion ahead of Israeli brokerage eToro, which saw its own value fall to $8.8 billion at the end of December.
It’s also surged ahead the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini, which was valued at $7.1 billion in a Morgan Creek-led, $400-million round last November.
As things stand, OpenSea is now worth more than $3 billion ahead of Kraken. The San Francisco-based crypto exchange (and bank) achieved a $10-billion valuation last year.
This is subject to change, however, with Kraken supposedly considering going public sometime this year.
Read more: [Just 5% of NFT traders make the vast majority of profits on marketplace OpenSea]
OpenSea is even worth vastly more than crypto custody unit Anchorage, which mostly services institutional investors.
Anchorage’s valuation hit $3 billion in mid-December after raising $300 million in its own Series C.
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