Cryptocurrencies of non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces dipped during Wednesday U.S. morning hours following news of OpenSea facing potential U.S. regulatory action.

Adding to earlier losses alongside a broad crypto decline begun Tuesday evening U.S. hours, Blur (BLUR) fell another 5% in the minutes following the news before a modest bounce. It's now down 10% over the past 24 hours. Tensor (TNSR), a Solana-based NFT marketplace aggregator, also traded 3% lower. The token's price was down nearly 9% over the past 24 hours. The broader CoinDesk 20 Index was lower by 4% over the same time frame.

The morning price action happened as OpenSea's CEO said the platform received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the digital arts sold on the marketplace are securities.

OpenSea has received a Wells notice from the SEC threatening to sue us because they believe NFTs on our platform are securities.

We're shocked the SEC would make such a sweeping move against creators and artists. But we're ready to stand up and fight.

Cryptocurrencies have long…
— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) August 28, 2024

NFT OpenSea Blur SEC

Krisztian Sandor

Krisztian Sandor recently graduated from NYU's business and economic reporter program as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Reuters and Forbes previously. Originally from Budapest, Hungary, he is now based in New York. He holds BTC and ETH.