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OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said the SEC dropping its investigation into the NFT marketplace is a huge win for the space.
Newsletter
In this week’s newsletter, read about the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropping its investigation into the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, NFT game Illuvium cutting its workforce to speed up its development, and in other news, find out why Gunzilla Games’ Web3 director thinks the blockchain gaming market is a “game of musical chairs.”
SEC drops investigation into NFT marketplace OpenSea
OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said the SEC has closed its investigation into the NFT marketplace. The executive said this was a win for everyone creating and building the space. Finzer said classifying NFTs as securities “misinterprets the law and slows innovation.”
In August 2024, the SEC issued a Wells notice to OpenSea, opening its investigation. The regulator alleged that the NFT trading platform operated as a marketplace for unregistered securities.
Magic Eden chief business officer Chris Akhavan said that while OpenSea is their competitor, he views the development as a win for the industry. The executive said that while they are competitors, they both deeply believe in NFTs and what they enable.
Illuvium CEO says firm has gone ‘super lean’ to speed up development
NFT creature collector game Illuvium cut about 40% of its workforce in the last two weeks as the company attempts to speed up its game development timeline. Illuvium co-founder and CEO Kieran Warwick told Cointelegraph that the company had been downsizing in the last two years after peaking at 200 employees.
The latest layoff reduced the staff count from 110 to 65. Warwick said none of the employees who were let go were developers, but worked in other capacities like marketing, operations, security and quality assurance.
The executive said that while it’s a “somber moment,” the company aims to be more efficient. He added that they worked 12 to 15 hours daily in their first year when they only had 50 to 60 people “smashing out as much work as possible.”
Blockchain gaming market is a ‘game of musical chairs’ — Gunzilla exec
Gunzilla Games Web3 director Theodore Agranat said blockchain gaming has become a “game of musical chairs.” The executive told Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong that no “new money” is coming into the system.
Agranat said the space’s existing capital is being recycled between projects, and no new value enters the ecosystem. The executive also said that there’s no loyalty in blockchain gaming. He said players will go from project to project and extract whatever value they can. After that, they move on to another project.
Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
