According to a recent report, the valuation of the leading NFT marketplace in the market, OpenSea, has plummeted by up to 90%, from $13.3 billion at the beginning of 2022 to less than $1.4 billion at the current time.
The significant drop in OpenSea’s value has left investors in the platform reeling. Specifically, Coatue Management, an investment fund, has suffered the most significant losses, with its investment in OpenSea losing 90% of its value.
Initially, Coatue owned $120 million worth of shares in OpenSea. By the end of the second quarter of 2023, the value of these shares had dwindled to approximately $13 million. In addition to OpenSea, Coatue’s investment in the web3 infrastructure company MoonPay has also seen a similar decrease.
Compounding OpenSea’s difficulties, the platform recently laid off half of its employees, scaled down its business operations, and focused on enhancing its technology while prioritizing resources for its core products. Meanwhile, its competitor, Blur, has been growing stronger, with the price of the BLUR token even surging during this period.
The reason behind OpenSea’s steep decline is attributed to the prolonged cryptocurrency bear market, which forced investors to gradually sell off their shares to cover expenses while the NFT market has yet to catch up with the recovery.