OpenSea CFO Brian Roberts Takes Advisory Role

After 11 months as the chief financial officer of non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, Brian Roberts said he is sailing to new waters.

Roberts announced his move in a LinkedIn post Saturday (Oct. 8), noting that he’ll remain with the company as an adviser.

“I had the rare opportunity to build a team literally from the ground up and handpicked game changers,” wrote Roberts, who joined OpenSea last year after several years with Lyft. “The company is heads down building and I assure you, the best is yet to come.”

The digital asset market has gone through a tumultuous year after peaking in 2021, losing $2 trillion in value. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced in July that the company would lay off 20% of its workforce due to this market downturn.

See also: NFT Marketplace OpenSea Cuts 20% of Staff

Finzer said on Twitter that “macroeconomic instability” was another factor, due to an “unprecedented” combination of a crypto winter amid wider, general instability. As such, he said OpenSea needed to begin preparing for “the possibility of a prolonged downturn.”

As PYMNTS noted at the time, numerous other companies have also cut staff in order to cope with the economic volatility, among them Coinbase, Banxa, Bullfish, Celsius, Genesis, Crypto.com, BlockFi, Bitpanda and 2TM. The market disruptions have also affected the executive staff at some crypto firms, with the founders of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius recently departing their posts.

In September, Jesse Powell, chief executive of the first U.S. cryptocurrency exchange to receive a banking license, also announced his resignation.

Read more: Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, Crypto’s First Banker, Steps Down

Powell made history in 2020 when his Kraken cryptocurrency exchange became the first crypto industry company to receive a special-purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter from the Wyoming Division of Banking.

Kraken said that Chief Operating Officer Dave Ripley would succeed Powell, who is staying with the company as chairman.

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