NFTs are a new world for modern art. The new market quickly surged to $17 billion in worth and OpenSea is at the heart of the newly emerging sector.
OpenSea is considered Amazon of NFTs or non-fungible tokens. It’s an online marketplace where users can build, sell and buy NFTs. It’s the largest NFT trading platform with over 1.5 million active users, according to Dune Analytics.
In January, OpenSea’s had its busiest month yet. It recorded a monthly trading volume of nearly $5 billion, surpassing its previous high in August of 2021.
Alongside that explosive growth, however, the platform also has faced scrutiny for user complaints on the platform related to scams and plagiarism. Crypto-related crime soared nearly 79 percent in the 2021 year over year, according to data from Chainalysis.
“We’ve been looking at market manipulation, wash trading and plagiarism and then your run-of-the-mill phishing scam, which is also something that has been coming into the NFT space,” Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, told CNBC. “So, we do see that kind of connection with scamming in the overall market activity.”
