Token Trading Becomes OpenSea’s New Growth Engine — Can This Transformation Succeed?

Author: Nancy, PANews

There's no doubt that the NFT market, after a brief boom, has entered a long period of adjustment. As the speculative frenzy subsides, numerous projects have been shut down or eliminated from the market. OpenSea, once a giant in NFT trading, has also shifted from a "unicorn" to a "survival mode," its multi-billion dollar valuation having already shrunk significantly amid the industry's turmoil.

Faced with stagnant business growth and profit concerns, OpenSea is actively pursuing transformation. It is not only attempting to transform itself into a fully integrated trading platform, but is also using airdrop incentives to re-attract users and liquidity.

Token trading has surpassed NFT trading, with significant contributions from existing users

OpenSea's business focus is rapidly shifting from traditional NFT trading to token trading.

According to Dune data, OpenSea's trading volume remained at a low level for a long time before April this year, maintaining only a few million US dollars per day, and the market focus was still concentrated on traditional NFT transactions. However, since mid-September, the platform's trading structure has shown a significant turning point. Token trading volume has climbed rapidly and surpassed NFT for the first time, and then continued to widen the gap, becoming the platform's new growth engine. In particular, on October 15, OpenSea's token trading volume reached US$474 million, a record high, while the NFT trading volume on the same day was only US$13.747 million, accounting for less than 2.9%, a significant gap between the two. As of now, OpenSea's token trading volume this year has reached $3.55 billion, of which $3.03 billion has been contributed in the past 30 days, accounting for approximately 85.4% of the annual total. These transactions mainly come from three chains: Base, Arbitrum, and Ethereum, with Base contributing particularly well. For example, on October 16th, the platform's total trading volume exceeded $470 million, of which Base contributed 58.2%. The surge in token trading has directly driven changes in OpenSea's revenue structure. According to Dune data tracking, token trading over the past 30 days generated approximately $25.5 million in revenue, accounting for 56.8% of OpenSea's total revenue this year (US$44.9 million). In contrast, the NFT market's overall transaction volume this year was only US$1.82 billion, less than half of token trading; its revenue over the past 30 days was approximately US$5.57 million, far lower than the token sector. NFT transactions on October 15th were primarily distributed on Ethereum, Base, and Hyper-EVM.

It is worth noting that the significant increase in OpenSea's trading activity is not driven by new users, but by the high-frequency operations of old users. Since the second half of 2025, the number of active addresses on the platform has begun to increase significantly, and the proportion of repeat users has remained high. Taking October 13 as an example, the platform's active addresses reached 276,000 that day, of which 94.2% were repeat users, which means that OpenSea's trading volume growth depends more on the re-participation and high-frequency interaction of existing users rather than the expansion of new users.

Simply put, OpenSea's short-term explosive power comes from the high-frequency liquidity of the token trading market and the deep participation of old users.

Aiming to Build a Full-Chain Integrated Application, Leveraging Airdrop Incentives to Accelerate Transformation

In July of this year, OpenSea announced its plan to build a full-chain integrated application, integrating NFT, token, and DeFi functionality into a single platform, aiming to provide users with a brand new user experience. The launch of this strategic plan began months earlier.

In February 2025, OpenSea fully launched its transformation, launching the public beta of its new platform, OS2. OS2 is a completely rebuilt product, featuring a brand new interface and search functionality, as well as collector and professional user modes. In addition to traditional NFT trading, the platform also supports token swaps and native cross-chain purchases, supports multiple blockchains, and promotes user engagement through a diverse incentive mechanism.

At the same time, OpenSea announced a token issuance plan to reward long-term supporters and OG users and promote sustainable development. According to the official explanation at the time, "The NFT bull market changed us. We became too corporate, too Web2-centric, risk-averse, and lost sight of our original purpose of building for users." This long-awaited news has reignited market interest. After all, during the NFT bull market, competitor Blur's token issuance siphoned off a significant portion of OpenSea's market share, raising concerns about its token issuance. To boost its token trading business, OpenSea is focusing on both product and technology. The platform integrates multiple blockchains, including Solana, HyperEVM, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Sei, and collaborates deeply with applications like Uniswap, MetaMask, Meteora, and Coinbase Wallet to optimize the cross-chain trading experience. Simultaneously, OpenSea acquired Rally, introducing its mobile-first Web3 app and Rally wallet, supporting token trading across 19 blockchains. The newly launched mobile app also natively integrates the AI ​​tool "OpenSea Intelligence," enabling real-time cross-chain portfolio analysis and one-stop trading, providing users with intelligent asset management and trading experience.

In terms of user traffic activation, OpenSea actively seized market hotspots. For example, the platform took advantage of the NFTStrategy craze to launch related tokens and injected 20 ETH into the reward pool to incentivize trading activity. The airdrop incentive plan is an even more important driving factor. Last month, OpenSea announced that the pre-TGE rewards had entered the final stage and launched the "Treasure Chest" activity. Users can obtain rewards by upgrading the treasure chest through cross-chain transactions, daily tasks, and collecting supplies. The platform will use 50% of the fees for user incentives. After the launch of the activity, the cumulative trading volume exceeded US$2 billion. Wave 1 has now ended, and tokens and NFT rewards with a total value of US$12.2 million will be distributed soon; Wave 2 will start on October 15th and end on November 15th. The initial prize pool includes OP, SOMI, and ETH tokens worth US$1 million. From this point of view, the growth of OpenSea's trading activity is closely related to the airdrop and reward mechanism. OpenSea recently revealed plans to launch the SEA token in the first quarter of 2026. 50% of the total supply will be allocated to the community, with initial claims accounting for half. Participants in the OpenSea rewards program and OG users will be given priority consideration. Officials have previously disclosed that they are evaluating historical user usage data and transaction volume over different years and will develop a more targeted incentive strategy based on user profiles. Following the launch of the SEA token, OpenSea will offer users more ways to utilize it, including staking, allowing users to stake SEA against their favorite tokens and collectibles. Furthermore, 50% of SEA revenue will be used to purchase SEA tokens at launch, ensuring the token's value and the healthy development of the ecosystem. Furthermore, OpenSea is also continuously advancing its NFT business during this period, including launching the OpenSea Flagship Collection, an NFT reserve program. The platform plans to invest over $1 million to acquire historical and emerging NFTs to revitalize the NFT market and enrich the platform ecosystem.

In short, before the OpenSea airdrop plan is fully implemented, its market activity will continue to be driven by incentive mechanisms in the short term.