OpenSea is laying off hard… via Slack

It might be summer, but the cold of crypto winter is setting in fast.  

Time to say goodbye 

For many in the crypto world, the bad times are here. Layoffs are never easy, and it’s a challenge to manage the process with empathy. And looking at the way OpenSea’s CEO has conducted the company kick-outs, he could learn a thing or two about that.  

Devin Finzer, co-founder of OpenSea as well as its CEO, took to Slack to tell employees about the layoffs at the NFT marketplace. @ing everyone in a specific channel, he said: “@channel Hi all, we made an incredibly sad and difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by ~20%, and today we’re saying goodbye to many of our friends and team members across OpenSea.” Devin, you lost us at “@channel”. Come on, man.  

@ me next time 

Finzer doubled down on his cold approach, screenshotting the Slack message in a tweet to the wider world.  The lengthy message underlined the tough times facing the crypto industry, writing that “the reality is that we have entered an unprecedented combination of crypto winter and broad macroeconomic instability.” 

Seeing OpenSea, the most popular NFT marketplace, undertake hefty layoffs will no doubt send a shiver down the spine of employees in other crypto firms. The wider economic downturn facing the US means that in many spaces, crypto remains cold, and NFT sales have plummeted in the last few weeks. Wrap up warm – it’s gonna be a long winter.