Key Takeaways:
- OpenSea buys Dharma Labs.
- Navel Hollander is appointed as the new CTO.
- The Ethereum wallet of Dharma will be shutting down.
NFT marketplace OpenSea has added another block to its foundation by buying Dharma Labs. They have also announced the appointment of the New Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Nadav Hollander, the CEO and Co-founder of Dharma Labs.
OpenSea says, “2022 will be about building across four core priorities: 1) accelerating product development to ensure we’re meeting the needs of our growing community, 2) expanding our trust, safety and reliability efforts, 3) meaningfully investing in the NFT and web3 ecosystem, and 4) significantly growing our team. And today, to help accomplish all four – we’re thrilled to announce that we’re acquiring Dharma Labs.”
Dharma’s Ethereum wallet will be shut down as a part of the deal and will create some controversy as users will have only a month to offload their assets to a different account. Clients used to connect their bank accounts, purchase and trade tokens while engaging with several elements of the DeFi ecosystem using the wallet.
OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said in a blog, “Our teams share a vision that NFTs will be the cultural focal point of crypto’s adoption for years to come — and that vision can only be realised if using NFTs becomes easy & delightful for the average person.”
OpenSea has grown into a $13.3 billion crypto decacorn, but some clients blame it for being too centralised for the “web3” world. Claims have been made that early users couldn’t benefit from the startup’s expanding valuation. Even after considering its competitors like Rarible, Zora, a recent upstart LooksRare, OpenSea is still by a wide margin away from becoming a powerhouse in the world of NFTs.
