OpenSea, an online NFT marketplace, is now worth $13.3 billion after a latest investment of $300 million.
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are unique pieces of digital code which can be associated with a digital asset like work of digital art and have become the latest ‘it’ investment vehicle, whose value could exceed even that of crypto, experts say.
OpenSea is said to have made some multi-million dollar trades. Trades on OpenSea jumped 600-fold last year amid high speculation.
OpenSea was founded by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah in New York on December 20, 2017.
Announcing the new round of funding, even though critics are denouncing the high valuation, OpenSea has said it would ‘look to bring NFTs to a broad consumer audience this year’ and reduce their ‘barriers to entry.’
‘In 2021, we saw the world awaken to the idea that NFTs represent the basic building blocks for brand new peer-to-peer economies,’ wrote Finzer, who co-founded the company in 2017.
Many argue that the spiraling valuations of these new-age businesses reflects a shortage of places for investors to park the free-flowing capital, when an increasing number of investors. particularly artists and celebrities are choosing NFTs as an investment asset.
The total value of trade for NFTs was estimated to be worth $40.9 billion in 2021
Chainalysis.
Regulators are concerned that retail investors are not completely cognizant of the inherent risks associated with investments such as NFTs.
The larger concerns about pollution and environmental pollution, often associated with blockchain due to the large computing and storage requirements are also being raised with NFTs.