OpenSea Looks To Expand Team Of 37 As Weekly NFT Sales Exceed $1B On The Platform

What Happened: Popular decentralized NFT marketplace OpenSea hit a record $1 billion in weekly sales.

According to data from DappRadar, the total value to smart contracts on OpenSea’s marketplace stood at 450,000 Ethereum ETH/USD or $1.44 billion over the past week, up 177% from the one that passed.

In fact, for the entire month of August, the platform generated $2.93 billion in trading volume driven by over 2 million transactions from close to 190,000 users.

Meanwhile, only 37 people employed at OpenSea have been handling 98% of all NFT trading volume.

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The “pressing need for manpower” at the NFT marketplace prompted OpenSea’s Head of Product Nate Chastain to announce the platform was urgently looking to hire engineers and designers.

“Interview process involves some practical coding exercises related to hypothetical OpenSea functionality, but we don't want to over-index on interview skills/algorithm work. We evaluate candidates holistically,” he said.

What Else: OpenSea’s popularity has surged in recent months following another explosive boom in NFTs that dwarves the weekly volumes seen earlier this year.

While popular collections from CryptoPunks and Axie Infinity drove most of the month's sales, some newer spinoffs recently received wide amounts of traction.

A prime example of this was witnessed on Saturday when Board Apes Yacht Club holders sold $96 million Mutant Apes NFTs in under one hour.

Read also: Top 10 NFT Projects By Volume: CrytoPunks Lead Way, Bored Ape Lands 3 Spots

Bored Ape owners included NBA star Stephen Curry, who used his ape as his Twitter profile picture to signal he was part of the club. Curry reportedly bought his ape for 55 ETH or $180,000 – more than 80 times its original price.

Photo: Courtesy of OpenSea