Yesterday, OpenSea announced a new feature on its platform that will allow users to create a self-custody wallet by solely submitting their email. The company is billing the new tool as a way to “improve the onboarding experience” and said that it will help onboard more people to Web3.
The new feature allows users to create a wallet with just a few simple steps, bypassing the hurdles that force NFT enthusiasts to create a separate wallet, record a seed phrase, and activate the wallet for use on OpenSea with cryptocurrency. With the OpenSea wallet, users can buy, sell, add, send, and receive crypto and NFTs; manage funds; and view transactions on the blockchain.
The technology behind the wallet comes from Privy, an OpenSea partner that has backing from Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, BlueYard Capital, Electric Capital, Archetype, and Protocol Labs. In 2022, Privy raised $8 million in a seed round that it said would help the company grow its team, scale its APIs, and build partnerships.
Self-custody wallets created using OpenSea’s new feature will be compatible with all nine EVM chains that OpenSea supports, including Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum. In addition, users will be able to purchase some NFTs in-wallet using credit or debit cards.
OpenSea Makes Moves During Bear Market
They say bear markets are for builders, and OpenSea’s philosophy during this period of relatively little price action has embodied this saying. Here are three stories involving the innovations it has created in the bear market, tools that will likely lay the groundwork for the onboarding of thousands during the next bull market.
First, four months ago, OpenSea sunsetted its lazy minting feature in favor of a new tool called ‘Creator Studio.’ The new tool gives creators better ways to manage, promote, and analyze their collections, including through the creation of landing pages that tell a story about the tokens — a big win for smaller artists all around.
Next, six months ago, OpenSea solved a major problem in Web3 by launching ‘Deals,’ a peer-to-peer NFT swapping feature. The tool allows users to trade NFTs, along with sweetening the pot through WETH, which nullifies the problems seen in transactions on other platforms that run the risk of being fraudulent.
Lastly, nine months ago, OpenSea debuted its ‘Pro’ version, which caters to traders who move a large volume of NFTs. The move was said to counter the dominance of Blur, an Ethereum NFT marketplace that had taken over NFT trading volume through a series of incentives and a token airdrop.
As these stories show, OpenSea has been busy during the bear market, debuting countless tools that cater to a variety of different segments of users in the NFT space. At Rarity Sniper, we’ll be paying close attention to what this legacy marketplace does next.