OpenSea CFO leaves less than one year after joining

OpenSea CFO Brian Roberts has left the NFT marketplace company less than a year after he joined, according to his LinkedIn update posted on Friday. 

Roberts, the former CFO at the ride-sharing giant Lyft, joined OpenSea last December as the company’s first finance employee and built the finance team from the ground up, his LinkedIn update said. He will be staying on as an adviser to the company.

Roberts’ departure comes amid something of a crypto industry exodus. Several executives have left crypto firms in recent weeks. Earlier this week, The Block reported that FTX’s head of OTC and institutional sales Jonathan Cheesman had quietly left the firm. Last month, FTX.US president Brett Harrison stepped back to an advisory role. In the same month, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell stepped down to make way for incoming CEO David Ripley. Bitcoin investment services firm NYDIG’s CEO Robert Gutmann and president Yan Zhao also left the company last week.

Reasons behind the moves may vary, but they all come amid difficult market conditions. Bitcoin’s price has declined more than 70% from last November’s all-time highs of around $69,000 to about $19,500 today.

NFT trading volumes have also declined sharply in recent months. Last month, there was a drop of about 18% in trading volume on Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces to $504 million, according to data from The Block Research.

OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, saw its volumes drop more than 30% last month. Roberts said in his LinkedIn update that he remained “incredibly bullish on web3 and especially OpenSea.”

“The company is heads down building and I assure you, the best is yet to come,” he added.

OpenSea is backed by high-profile investors, including Paradigm and Coatue. Earlier this year, the company raised $300 million in a Series C funding round at a $13.3 billion valuation. Shortly after the fundraise, OpenSea acquired crypto wallet firm Dharma Labs, and in April this year, it acquired NFT aggregator Gem.

Roberts said in his LinkedIn profile that helped OpenSea close the fundraise and the two acquisitions.

OpenSea did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment on Roberts’ departure.

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