OpenSea CFO dismisses Fortune’s report about ‘99% fall in transaction volume’ as ‘unfair’

OpenSea chief financial officer Brian Roberts has dismissed as “unfair” and “reckless” a media report which claims that trading volume on  the leading NFT marketplace has slumped by 99% since May. 

On August 30, Fortune magazine published a report entitled “Trading volume on top NFT marketplace OpenSea down 99% in USD from May peak” on its website.

Citing data from DappRadar, a service that allows users to view blockchain transaction volumes, the article stated that OpenSea processed a record US$2.7 billion in NFT transactions on May 1. But on August 28, the amount was worth US$9.34 million, indicating that OpenSea’s trading volume fell 99% in just four months, the report said. 

Active users were also down to 24,020 as of August 28, about a third of the number on May 1, it said.

Responding to the report on his Twitter, Roberts said the framing, methodology and sources used in the report were “wrong and unfair.” “I would venture to say [it is] reckless,” Roberts wrote in his Tweet.

Showing a chart of trading volumes, he said that Fortune had “cherry picked” May 1, when trading volumes were about six times higher than the average between March 1 and June 30, as a single reference date for comparison. 

Roberts also questioned if the figure of US$2.7 billion in a single day was reliable, as this would imply an annual run rate of US$1 trillion. He asked the magazine to do better research and find more reliable sources.

On the number of users, Roberts said that despite market volatility, both user numbers and transaction volumes had remained relatively flat, each down 2% in July from their May levels.

He noted that interest and excitement around NFTs remain despite ebbs and flows in the broader crypto space.