US investment firm Coatue Management has cut its investment in the OpenSea platform by 90%, reducing its value to $1.4 billion. This move is a result of the drop in NFT trade activity and the current weak economy. OpenSea is reducing its workforce and focusing on improving the technology in the upcoming version of the platform.

• The NFT OpenSea platform has seen a 90% drop in value due to a decision made by US investment firm Coatue Management.
• OpenSea’s value has fallen to $1.4 billion.
• Following this huge, investment the NFT platform was valued at $13.3 billion.

NFT’s OpenSea platform has experienced a 90% drop in value following a decision by investment firm Coatue Management.

The Information, on 7 November, revealed that Coatue has reduced its investment from $120 million to $13 million, suggesting that the value of OpenSea has dropped on paper to $1.4 billion. In addition, Coatue has reduced its involvement in MoonPay, a Web3 payments provider, by 90%.

OpenSea completed its Series C funding of $300 million in January 2022, with Paradigm and Coatue leading the investment. Following this massive venture, the NFT platform was valued at $13.3 billion.

In line with the goal of transitioning to OpenSea 2.0, the platform announced on 3 November a reduction of staff by 50% in response to a year-long decline in NFT trading activity and difficulties in the market.

OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer has indicated that the new version of the platform will focus on improving technology, increasing speed and improving quality of service. According to him, reducing human resources will allow the platform to remain agile and vigilant.

OpenSea became the target of criticism in August when it announced the discontinuation of its operator filter tool, which allowed manufacturers to ban markets that did not require licence fees.

The reduction in Coatue’s investment coincides with a decline in NFT trading volumes. After reaching sales of almost $14 billion in 2021, the industry has reached its peak. Since then, the popularity of NFT has been waning as evidenced by an 80% decline in total trading volume since March 2022.

According to a report published on 3 November by cryptocurrency monitoring company, DappRadar, the NFT market saw an increase of $99 million  in October compared to the previous month, the first such increase in over a year.