Interview with OpenSea's Vice President: Company Not Seeking Sale, Focused on Development in Three Key Areas
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Interview with OpenSea's Vice President: Company Not Seeking Sale, Focused on Development in Three Key Areas
"The three areas we are currently focusing on are gaming, Web3-native domains, and what we broadly refer to as consumer loyalty."
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsInterviewee: Kelly Digregorio, Vice President and Head of Content Partnerships at OpenSea
Interview & Article: Wendy, Foresight News
"Our CEO has not said that OpenSea is for sale." During the recent Consensus conference, Kelly Digregorio, OpenSea’s Vice President and Head of Content Partnerships, clarified this matter in an interview with Foresight News. She further explained: "I think there may have been some miscommunication during that interview, leading to the media outlet expressing something different from our CEO's original intent or direct statements."
In a January interview article, crypto media DLNews quoted OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer as saying he was "open-minded" about acquisition offers.
When the report was widely republished and cited, the public did not seem particularly surprised. On one hand, the NFT market has cooled during the bear market; on the other, OpenSea faces strong competition from emerging rivals like Blur. In November last year, OpenSea had already cut its workforce by 50%.
Although according to Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu, the overall NFT market isn't as sluggish as perceived externally and has improved alongside the broader recovery of the crypto market, it still faces significant challenges.
Under these market conditions, how should OpenSea compete and grow? Foresight News discussed these issues further with Kelly Digregorio.
Foresight News: Two years ago, attending Consensus, NFTs were a very hot topic, but now the热度 seems to have cooled somewhat. However, you just mentioned that you’re still building some exciting things—can you share more details?
OpenSea: There are many interesting and utility-driven NFT activities happening on OpenSea. For us, utility-based NFTs represent a number of exciting developments. We recently announced a collaboration with Gunzilla Games, integrating their Avalanche subnet into the OpenSea marketplace. This allows players and OpenSea users to trade in-game NFT assets. The first project launching on GUNZ will be Gunzilla Games’ cyberpunk-style battle royale game Off The Grid, which is set to release this year on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. This is a major development in the Web3 gaming space.
We also recently partnered with Coachella, launching a pass NFT series ahead of the music festival, available for purchase on a dedicated collection page on OpenSea. Earlier this year, we introduced a new feature allowing users to create crypto wallets using only an email address, making the NFT purchasing process extremely simple. Throughout the Coachella festival, fans completed over 55,000 tasks—including fully digital tasks and on-site physical quests—collecting NFTs, accumulating points, and winning prizes such as VIP passes and various exclusive merchandise.
OpenSea has also conducted multiple deployments and upgrades to its NFT marketplace recently. We upgraded from Seaport 1.5 to Seaport 1.6, introducing a technical component called pre-execution zone hooks. These allow checks to be performed before transaction execution to see if specific flags exist within a zone—for example, creator fees. This enables us to enforce secondary sales royalties across all transactions executed on the Seaport protocol, whether they occur on OpenSea or any other marketplace or aggregator that integrates Seaport. Interested parties can refer to this for more information.
We’ve also launched ERC-721C compatibility, a standard introduced by Limit Break that allows creators to implement programmable, enforceable royalty mechanisms directly on-chain, including custom logic. This is great news for gaming communities, as many game studios have decided to adopt ERC-721C within their game infrastructures. Over the past six months, we’ve been closely studying these developments.
But one thing we’re truly focused on is OpenSea 2.0. OpenSea 2.0 involves rebuilding our architecture in many ways so that we can deploy faster for users, creators, game developers, and other stakeholders in the industry. It will enable quicker chain integrations. A few months ago we integrated Blast, and recently we’ve also integrated Sei—so the ability to rapidly integrate new chains is something we really want to push forward.
We’re very excited about the diverse use cases unfolding in the NFT space, especially around game development via ERC-721C. We’re also interested in tokenized assets, real-world assets (RWA), ticket tokenization, merchandise tokenization, and similar areas.
We’ve experimented with burn-and-redeem technology on OpenSea. For example, we ran some airdrop campaigns, including a game airdrop with Captain & Company where you could burn an NFT representing a loot box and receive three NFTs that function as actual gameplay components in Captain & Company. We also collaborated with Coachella on burn-and-redeem functionality—users could burn their NFTs to redeem VIP passes or merchandise boxes. More partnerships are coming that will utilize the burn-and-redeem mechanism in novel ways. This really gives consumers something beyond the NFT itself, right? Obviously, owning NFTs as collectibles is fun.
But what about utility? What can you actually get from this NFT? Either physical items shipped to your home, in-game play access, or interaction with certain experiences. So I believe NFTs remain an engaging product, offering participation, choice, and novelty to consumers.
Foresight News: From the outside, the NFT market appears somewhat cold now, although we know the broader crypto market is gradually warming up. Are you seeing similar trends in the NFT space? If so, what are the main drivers? You mentioned a lot about games—has that become your primary focus area?
OpenSea: Currently, we're focusing on three key areas: gaming, Web3-native applications, and what we broadly call consumer loyalty programs, which may include companies transitioning from Web2 to Web3 or deeper internal Web3 partnerships.
A great example is Samsung, which recently launched its Web3 TV bundle, gifting NFTs as part of the package for anyone purchasing a Frame TV or Web3-enabled TV. Some of these NFTs can be redeemed for hardware like Ledger wallets and other giveaways. Samsung also launched an NFT Gallery TV app that allows users to personalize and display their NFTs. So I think consumer loyalty is a broad category—not necessarily limited to large Web2 corporations.
Foresight News: Why is gaming so important to OpenSea? Is it because of market size or other reasons?
OpenSea: Market size is clearly a factor. Gaming communities—whether studios, developers, or players themselves—are highly tech-savvy. And games allow for great diversity in NFTs because there are numerous components and ways to integrate them into gameplay, enabling NFTs to serve various functions within games. That’s why I find gaming such an interesting use case.
There’s huge potential in gaming—for instance, games like Gunzilla Games’ Off the Grid and Shrapnel bridge Web3 and traditional distribution models (like consoles), which I find fascinating.
I believe there’s growth here, even without formally labeling everything as NFTs. NFTs can be part of games, or part of fun experiences like Coachella Quest. So I think there’s momentum—even if people aren’t explicitly calling it NFT adoption.
Foresight News: Certain high-profile projects might bring changes to the NFT market, such as Story Protocol. We recently interviewed their co-founder, who believes projects like Story Protocol could help revive the NFT market. What’s your take? Do you have any partnership with them?
OpenSea: We don’t have a formal partnership with Story Protocol. But I’m very interested in what Story Protocol has deployed. Broadly speaking, they focus on provenance of intellectual property, and believe NFTs can fundamentally support this use case. Companies like Story have proposed methods to use NFTs to verify AIGC (AI-generated content) provenance. I think this is another example where NFT technology could play a major role in tracking and establishing IP rights—enabling transfer of rights between entities and encoding such information on-chain. This represents another growth opportunity where people may not explicitly talk about NFTs, but NFT technology becomes crucial for provenance tracking and rights management.
Foresight News: Beyond IP tracking, I think since the last cycle, people have talked about the concept of NFTfi, and some such projects have been built on the Blast ecosystem. How do you view the trend of NFTfi? Will OpenSea embrace it?
OpenSea: I think it remains to be seen how NFTfi ultimately evolves. NFTfi might simply end up being fractional ownership of NFTs, as discussed two or three years ago. So it will be interesting to observe what NFTfi eventually becomes and how different companies create value in this space.
The term “NFTfi” sounds appealing. Clearly, we already have DeFi, and now NFTfi seems to point toward something more specific or monetizable related to NFTs. Yet markets like OpenSea have long enabled secondary trading of NFTs as a core function. How exactly NFTfi will manifest remains unclear. To me, the term is still somewhat vague.
Foresight News: Since we’re talking about Blur, I’d like to ask—how do you view your competition with them?
OpenSea: I am VP of Business Development—the official title is Global Head of Content Partnerships. I’d say OpenSea and Blur are different products with different focuses.
We place strong emphasis on creator tools. For example, we launched OpenSea Studio in October last year. We also prioritize enforcing creator fees on secondary sales across the Seaport marketplace and aggregators, which led us to upgrade from Seaport 1.5 to 1.6. In terms of user experience, our OpenSea Wallet developed in partnership with Privy is a true differentiator. Now we’re running a major campaign with Base called “GetBased.” We have many exciting Base-based creators launching NFTs—most of which have no fixed supply and support continuous minting. We’re also implementing Farcaster frame functionality on Warpcast.
OpenSea has made a conscious effort to stay close to creators and users alike. We see this as a market differentiation—delivering a high-quality, robust experience. We strongly emphasize trust and safety, having launched the Copymint detection system to provide the best possible experience for users and creators.
Foresight News: There were some media reports previously claiming your CEO publicly stated OpenSea was open to being sold. Is that true? I'm not sure if you're the right person to answer, but I'm curious—why would you consider selling? Who are you looking for as potential buyers?
OpenSea: I’m not the right person to answer that question, but our CEO did not say that directly. I think the message in that interview may have been affected in some way, causing the media outlet to express something different from our CEO’s original intent or exact wording. Our CEO has not said OpenSea is for sale.
Foresight News: Since you oversee global business development, from a regional perspective, are there specific markets where OpenSea or NFTs in general are experiencing higher growth rates?
OpenSea: I think many regions show potential depending on the use case or vertical. For example, Japan and Korea have a lot of gaming activity. In North America, there’s strong traction in art creation and generative AI. So depending on the sector, certain regions lean more toward specific directions. I think it’s an evolving landscape.
Foresight News: This year is special—it’s a U.S. election year. We’re seeing a lot of political discussions, and many politicians, like Trump, have launched NFTs. How do you think this unique political environment will impact the NFT market?
OpenSea: Typically, crypto—and possibly NFTs to some extent—becomes a political topic during elections. That might have contributed to some legislation recently passed in the Senate. I don’t know exactly how it will unfold, but I think it’s becoming a more prominent political issue.
Foresight News: What about regulation? Several top industry players, such as Uniswap, Coinbase, and Consensys, are currently involved in legal battles with regulators. As a leader in the NFT space, how do you view regulatory risks in the U.S.?
OpenSea: Regulation is a frequently discussed topic, but it’s not our top priority at OpenSea. As a marketplace, we’re known for being highly trustworthy. We’ve implemented strong trust and safety measures, giving participants across the ecosystem—including users and creators—a sense of security and confidence.
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