OpenSea CFO Resigns Less Than One Year After Joining

Opensea's Chief Financial Officer Brian Roberts has resigned from the NFT marketplace but says he is still staying as an ‘advisor’ to the company.

The former CFO of Lyft took to his LinkedIn page on Saturday to disclose his resignation from Opensea. He stated:

“Well it is time for me to come ashore from the 'open seas.' I’m grateful for the opportunity and proud of many accomplishments but none more than the strength of the finance team at OpenSea.”

Brian started his CFO journey at Opensea last December as the company's first finance employee and has so far built the finance team from the ground up ever since. According to his LinkedIn update, he will stay as an advisor to the company.

His resignation from the NFT marketplace company comes amid the massive withdrawal of executives going on in the crypto industry. 

Not only Brian, but in recent weeks, several administrators have been seen leaving their respective crypto firms.

Earlier this week, news media, The Block, reported that FTX's head of OTC and institutional sales, Jonathan Cheesman, is no longer working in the firm.

In September, Brett Harrison, FTX. U.S president, announced on Twitter his departure from the crypto exchange firm and stated he would still stay in an advisory capacity.

In the same month, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell also resigned to make way for the new incoming CEO David Ripley. Bitcoin investment services firm NYDIG’s CEO Robert Gutmann and president Yan Zhao also quit the company last week.

While the reason behind this exodus differs from one another, the notable point is they all come amid extreme market conditions.

The global cryptocurrency market capitalization has declined more than 60% from its all-time high last November of $2.9 trillion to about $984 billion today – according to data from Coingecko.

Correspondingly, the NFT market trading volumes have also depreciated drastically in recent months. According to data from Dune Analytics, the NFT market weekly trading volume has decreased by 98%, plunging from $6.2 billion in January to about $100.2 million this week. 

Opensea, as an NFT marketplace continues to innovate as Brian stated, the company is “heads down building,” and he remains “incredibly bullish on web3 and especially OpenSea.” 

On Thursday, the NFT marketplace rolled out a new feature that allows users to list and buy up to 30 items in a single flow. According to Opensea, this new feature is more convenient and more gas efficient than buying individually.