OpenSea CFO exits firm just 10 months after joining

Less than a year after joining OpenSea, CFO Brain Roberts is leaving the NFT marketplace.

The former Lyft executive has been with OpenSea for just ten months after joining the company in December 2021 as its first finance employee. According to his LinkedIn update posted on Friday, Roberts built the finance team from the ground up and will stay with the company as an advisor.

Roberts’ departure comes amid the ongoing crypto winter, which has forced executives in other crypto firms to leave. For instance, news recently broke that FTX's head of OTC and institutional sales, Jonathan Cheesman, had quietly left the firm. Similarly, FTX.US president Brett Harrison retreated to an advisory role last month.

Although reasons for the multiple departures may vary, it is hard to ignore the current state of the crypto market. Bitcoin’s price has plummeted by more than 70% from its all-time high of around $69,000 in November 2021. The flagship crypto is exchanging hands at about $19,500 today.

Roberts joined OpenSea while the bull market was still raging in December. He quickly made headlines after saying that he was there to take the company public, a statement that irked many customers, forcing the CFO to backtrack on his earlier comments. Fast-forward to October 7, Roberts revealed that he was leaving the company.

Although the general crypto market began to see a pullback, the tides were still in favor of OpenSea as the digital collectibles market continued to boom. However, sales volume started to tumble in June and has been on a steady decline since then. OpenSea recorded a whopping 90% drop from January to August.