OpenSea: The whole lot You Have to Know Concerning the Token Airdrop Hypothesis – Decrypt

Three years after a peak NFT mania that drove month-to-month buying and selling quantity to billions of {dollars} and put the Bored Ape Yacht Membership on The Tonight Present, the collectible tokens are as soon as extra gaining steam—and so is in style NFT market OpenSea. 

NFT buying and selling quantity just lately hit a three-month excessive, and after market competitor Magic Eden concluded its personal ME airdrop, hypothesis is heating up a few potential OpenSea token. 

{The marketplace} might or is probably not teasing it, just lately asking X (previously Twitter) followers “How lengthy have you ever been utilizing OpenSea?” Many merchants took it as a cheeky nod to person loyalty, sometimes a key metric utilized by platforms figuring out token airdrop allocations.

The agency’s largest opponents, Blur and Magic Eden, have each accomplished airdrops to their respective customers, with the latter airdropping greater than $700 million to customers every week in the past. OpenSea as soon as led the NFT world after elevating funds at a $13.3 billion valuation in 2022, however has fallen sharply since as newer challengers have taken over.

Right here’s all the pieces we all know concerning the probabilities of an OpenSea token and hypothesis surrounding the occasion.

OpenSea Basis emerges

The biggest piece of hypothesis a few potential OpenSea token airdrop comes from a current submitting within the Cayman Islands for an “OpenSea Basis.” 

The submitting sparked fast intrigue amongst crypto individuals, highlighted by a submit from pseudonymous crypto character Wale.Swoosh which garnered greater than 1.4 million impressions on X.

Oftentimes, crypto organizations will create a basis as a separate entity from its extra established and client dealing with model. Traditionally, these foundations then turn into the organizing our bodies that talk and facilitate token airdrops. 

Though registering a basis doesn’t assure {that a} token will comply with, different organizations which have just lately offered customers with airdropped tokens have executed so by way of their respective foundations.

Current examples embrace the ME Basis for Magic Eden or the Motion Community Basis for the Ethereum layer-2 community Motion. 

A spokesperson for OpenSea confirmed to Decrypt that the inspiration is certainly a registered entity, however didn’t remark additional on any affiliation to OpenSea.

That affiliation grew to become a bit extra clear on December 20 when an X account utilizing the identify OpenSea Basis posted “ocean enters the chat,” doubtlessly teasing an OCEAN token.

The account, which was created in Might 2024, is simply following one account on the platform—OpenSea. Each OpenSea and its CEO, Devin Finzer, interacted with the submit by way of their respective accounts.

Whereas particulars are nonetheless scarce, a spokesperson for the OpenSea Basis advised Decrypt, “Extra to come back quickly.”

OpenSea 2.0 teases

Whereas many NFT merchants have urged OpenSea to drop a token for the previous few years, hypothesis round a possible token crescendoed in November. 

At the moment, OpenSea opened a waitlist for a utterly reimagined market known as OpenSea 2.0, after the one-time prime NFT platform scaled down its crew in an effort to be extra nimble and rethink its mannequin.

“We have been quietly cooking at OpenSea,” OpenSea CEO and co-founder Devin Finzer posted on X. “To essentially innovate, typically it’s important to take a step again and reimagine all the pieces.” 

Shortly after the waitlist opened, early beta customers of OpenSea 2.0 started sharing snippets of recent options that solely fueled the token hypothesis.

In a thread that acquired greater than 360,000 views on X, a pseudonymous beta tester going by the identify john.weth confirmed off a leaderboard and level farming exercise, suggesting that retroactive rewards had been coming—although “how and what measure” had been nonetheless to be decided.

OpenSea 2.0 was beforehand anticipated to launch a while in December, although no replace has been offered presently. Thus far, its waitlist has collected a couple of million wallets.

Merchants place their bets

Though particulars round a token launch are unknown, crypto bettors imagine the probabilities of an OpenSea airdrop are growing, in response to prediction markets on Polymarket.

For instance, the chances of an OpenSea token announcement earlier than 2024 are actually as much as almost 60%, a achieve of 40% within the final week. The chances had briefly dipped to twenty% within the morning hours of December 20, however rose sharply after the OpenSea Basis account posted on X.

The chances of an airdrop in different accessible prediction markets on Polymarket adopted go well with.

A market that enables customers to guess on an OpenSea token airdrop earlier than April 2025 is at present buying and selling at 82% in favor. Solely $50,000 has been wagered in the marketplace so far.

As for the success of the token? Greater than $2 million has been wagered on Polymarket in a market predicting whether or not or not an OpenSea token would commerce at a totally diluted valuation of greater than $1 billion one week after it launches.

Odds in the marketplace have dropped 5% within the final week, with merchants pricing the chance at 56%. The market will resolve to 50-50 if a token will not be launched by December 31, a feat that appears more and more unlikely.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor’s be aware: This story was initially printed on December 18, 2024 and final up to date with new particulars on December 20.