The current largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, recently acquired Dharma Labs, according to the official announcement published on OpenSea’s website. With this new development, OpenSea can greatly benefit from Dharma’s team, which developed an Ethereum wallet that allows users to buy crypto directly from their bank accounts.
At this time, OpenSea has yet to reveal what the Dharma team will be contributing to the popular platform. However, it mentioned that through this acquisition, OpenSea would be able to “[build] across…core priorities” like improving safety and trust among users, product development, and even investing in the Web3 and NFTs.
Undoubtedly, this new acquisition will allow OpenSea to expand its team. Currently, Dharma co-founder and CEO Nadav Hollander will be OpenSea’s Chief Technology Officer (CFO). Meanwhile, Dharma co-founder and COO will be OpenSea’s Head of Strategy.
As for the terms of the deal, OpenSea also didn’t disclose this information. Nevertheless, there are some early speculations from Axios regarding the acquisition, which suggested that the cost of acquiring Dharma was between $110 million and $130 million.
No More Dharma Wallet
According to Dharma, it will no longer be continuing its wallet, and it will officially come to an end by February 18. The company instructed Dharma Wallet users to ensure that they withdraw their funds before that date.
That said, users can still access their funds even after February 18 through a dApp, but the Dharma team urges users not to wait. To encourage users to withdraw their funds as soon as possible, Dharma is offering free withdrawals for the next 30 days. However, it’s worth noting that this only applies to Ethereum-based withdrawals worth more than $100 and Polygon-based withdrawals worth any amount.
According to Dharma, they’re discontinuing the smart wallet because they don’t want to force it into OpenSea’s operations. However, the company did note that “mobile wallets may very well play a key role in OpenSea’s future.” At this time, OpenSea buyers can use most Ethereum wallets available, including TrustWallet, MetaMask, and Coinbase Wallet.
