NFT Marketplace OpenSea Acquires Dharma Labs to Improve Fiat On-Ramps Options

Leading NFT marketplace OpenSea recently announced the acquisition of Dharma Labs, a move that is expected to help the former better its technological capabilities.

OpenSea Acquires Dharma Labs

In an announcement made on January 18, OpenSea stated it had acquired Dharma Labs, a DeFi startup that is quickly gaining popularity on the back of its intuitive user experience and various innovative utilities geared toward token swaps.

I’m happy to finally share that we’ve acquired @Dharma_HQ to help us scale our engineering, product and customer support! https://t.co/NnJdSFBzvo

— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) January 18, 2022

While the finer terms of the deal were not disclosed, sources close to the matter hint the value of Dharma could be anywhere between the range of $110 million $130 million.

In a blog post shared with The Block, Devin Finzer, co-founder of OpenSea, said:

“Our teams share a vision that NFTs will be the cultural focal point of crypto’s adoption for years to come — and that vision can only be realized if using NFTs becomes easy & delightful for the average person.” 

Notably, Dharma’s co-founder Nadav Hollander – a former software engineer at Coinbase and Google – has been appointed as OpenSea’s new CTO.

Finzer added:

“Nadav’s impact will be wide-reaching, but his initial mandate will be two core priorities: improving the technical reliability and uptime of our products, and building web3-native mechanisms for engaging with and rewarding our early and loyal community.”

What Is Dharma Labs?

For the uninitiated, Dharma is one of the earliest projects in the now multi-billion dollar DeFi landscape and offers a seamless protocol for lending and swapping tokens. The projects aims to bridge the gap between the crypto and fiat world by allowing users to easily deposit money via their debit cards and execute token swaps on protocols such as Uniswap.

OpenSea’s acquisition of Dharma is largely being seen as the company’s attempt to make the process of purchasing NFTs simpler for the masses.

The introduction of new and accessible purchasing options, including fiat options, is the priority for OpenSea at the moment, the firm told The Block.

The news comes shortly after competing NFT marketplace, Coinbase NFT Marketplace announced a partnership with Mastercard to make it easier for the masses to engage with digital collectibles and art.