OpenSea Acquires Dharma Labs, Appoints New CTO

There's no question that OpenSea is in build mode. 2021 was a landmark year for NFTs: the world recognized their potential as building blocks for a brand new, peer-to-peer internet. As OpenSea enters 2022, NFTs are squarely in the center of the public interest – and the company is humbled by the opportunity to help drive the space forward.

At OpenSea, 2022 will be about building across four core priorities: 1) accelerating product development to ensure it is meeting the needs of its growing community, 2) expanding its trust, safety and reliability efforts, 3) meaningfully investing in the NFT and web3 ecosystem, and 4) significantly growing its team. And today, to help accomplish all four – OpenSea is thrilled to announce that it is acquiring Dharma Labs.

The team at Dharma is among the most talented and respected consumer crypto teams in the world, having built beloved experiences for seamlessly onboarding fiat currency to blockchains. OpenSea's teams share a vision that NFTs will be the cultural focal point of crypto's adoption for years to come — and that vision can only be realized if using NFTs becomes easy & delightful for the average person. Ultimately, OpenSea believes this union will be a force multiplier for NFTs and web3 adoption, and help the company dramatically improve the experience of buying, minting, and selling NFTs on OpenSea — whether you're a beginner, or a pro.

Meet new CTO

With the acquisition, OpenSea will welcome Co-Founder and CEO of Dharma Labs, Nadav Hollander, to OpenSea as its new Chief Technology Officer. Nadav is a seasoned leader from the early Ethereum community, having built, launched, and evangelized some of the most influential protocols & products in the DeFi space. He brings fresh crypto-native expertise to OpenSea's leadership, having spent his career building systems that adeptly mask the complexities of smart contracts and blockchains for use by mainstream consumers. Nadav's impact will be wide-reaching, but his initial mandate will be two core priorities: improving the technical reliability and uptime of our products, and building web3-native mechanisms for engaging with and rewarding OpenSea's early and loyal community. OpenSea is thrilled to bring his deep crypto expertise into the OpenSea leadership team.

Oceans, not aquariums

Web3 is about open, community-led, and permissionless innovation, and OpenSea is doubling down on its contribution to that ethos. OpenSea is excited to share that OpenSea Co-Founder and current CTO, Alex Atallah, will step into a new, externally facing role where he'll oversee its web3 and NFT ecosystem development efforts. He'll serve as OpenSea's representative for the recently announced NFT Security Group, and will steer its soon-to-be-announced community investment efforts, focused on growing the entire NFT ecosystem.