The OpenSea marketplace has unexpectedly reclaimed its dominant position in the Ethereum NFT market, increasing its share from 25,5% to 71,5% over the past 30 days. The most significant surge occurred in the past week — from 42,4% to 71,5% — primarily due to a drop in trading volumes at competitor Blur and the launch of the $SEA token.
Hype Around the $SEA Token
The sharp rise in activity on OpenSea coincided with the long-awaited announcement of its platform token, $SEA, which took place on February 13. Since the announcement, the platform’s average daily trading volume has reached $17.4 million — five times higher than the previous five days, when it was at $3.47 million.
At the same time, the number of transactions has also increased. OpenSea now records an average of 14,700 daily transactions, whereas before the token announcement, this figure did not exceed 6,100.
Little is known about the $SEA token so far. However, OpenSea has already confirmed that users in the U.S. will also have access to the airdrop. Additionally, a key factor for token distribution will be past activity on the platform, which may be good news for traders who were actively buying and selling NFTs during the 2021 market boom.
It remains unknown when exactly the token distribution will begin and how the mechanics will work. However, if the hype around OpenSea continues, the platform could maintain its lead in the NFT sector for an extended period.
Controversial XP System in OS2
Previously, OpenSea faced criticism over its new experience points (XP) system. Users quickly noticed that the mechanism encouraged speculation and wash trading — artificial trading without real losses.
An NFT collector known as Wale pointed out that some traders were repeatedly buying and selling the same tokens within the system to accumulate more XP. Unlike its competitor Blur, OpenSea did not have a time delay between trades, making manipulation easier.
Another source of dissatisfaction was OpenSea’s decision to completely remove royalties for NFT creators, while Blur maintained a minimum commission for content creators. This allowed users to earn XP with almost no risk by simply transferring assets back and forth.
After the wave of criticism, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced a revision of the XP system. Now, the platform will reward not the frequency of trades but the purchase and ownership of NFTs.
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