OpenSea, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has gone past $1 billion in monthly transactions, The Block reported.
The company’s new surge comes as Google searches for NFTs hit an all-time high, according to the report.
The company’s trading volume increased 286 percent from July to August and has seen a $1.23 billion volume this month already, the report stated. The entire market has seen $1.27 billion.
OpenSea, based in New York, was formed in 2017. The company reached a $1.5 billion valuation by the end of July. It also raised $100 million in its Series B round and $23 million in Series A. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz backed both of the previous funding rounds.
OpenSea was the venue upon which the auction for Fortune magazine’s recent NFTs was held. Those NFTs were of the long-standing business magazine’s cover of its August/September issue, which featured a cryptocurrency theme.
Read more: Fortune Nets $1.3M In NFT Sale Of Magazine’s Art
That auction was able to raise over $1.3 million for the NFTs. According to Tech Editor Robert Hackett, half of the money will be given to nonprofit organizations.
The Fortune auction sold out in just a few minutes, and OpenSea experienced technical difficulties because of the activity.
In other news, Bitcoin’s price is doing well, approaching $50,000 as of Sunday (Aug. 22), according to CoinDesk data.
The price as of Sunday evening was $49,205, and the market cap was sitting at $925.97 billion, the data showed. The price was still down from Bitcoin’s all-time high of over $64,000 earlier this year.
BitPay Chief Financial Officer Jagruti Solanki told PYMNTS this month that she thinks cryptocurrency is here to stay because of the strong incentives. She talked about the reasons why people want to spend crypto more now.
Read more: Crypto Here To Stay As People Have Big Incentives To Pay
“Many people bought crypto at a really low value way back when and they have been holding, [not selling],” she said. “But now, [with prices increasing back to almost $50,000,] they feel like it is a good time to spend it. Because today’s prices are great, it’s literally like they’re getting stuff for free [when they spend crypto].”
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