'Fake' - OpenSea CMO responds to $150M ICO rumors

OpenSea’s Chief Marketing Officer Adam Hollander has responded to rumors that started circulating last week that claimed that OpenSea had plans for a $150 million ICO for a new token called SEA, to be sold publicly on Coinbase. 

The rumor had no real support, but it caused enough chatter that Hollander felt the need to respond multiple times on X, formerly Twitter.

Hollander responds to the rumors

According to Adam Holander, the purported leak of OpenSea’s $150 million public sale on Coinbase is “fake.” His response targeted a news post from a media source on X that alleged that Coinbase had shared a post about the upcoming ICO and deleted it, as well as a post from what he called a parody account.

Hollander commented on the post, calling it “fake” then in a separate post, he wrote: “There is no merit whatsoever to the fake Coinbase screenshot making the rounds on X this morning. Far as I can tell, it was posted by a parody account. You should only rely on official OpenSea or OpenSea Foundation channels.”

The rumor he had to debunk had no supporting evidence from primary data sources or trusted leadership statements that confirmed it, but it was gathering enough steam that Hollander had to intervene. The CMO emphasized the importance of companies remaining proactive in addressing misinformation.

SEA token to go live in 2026

OpenSea’s native SEA token is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2026, and it will reportedly play a big role in the marketplace’s ecosystem, covering aspects like governance, staking, and rewards.

OpenSea’s CEO has revealed that a significant portion of the total token supply has been set aside for community distribution, including allocations for historical users and those who have been participating in the ongoing rewards programs.

As part of its launch strategy, OpenSea will dedicate half of its platform revenue to creating a buyback program for SEA tokens. The initiative aims to boost the token’s value while fostering community investment, thereby setting it up as a central feature of the OpenSea setup.

Over the past couple of months, OpenSea has been interacting directly with the crypto community to get feedback. Meanwhile, it has stayed as transparent as possible about its future plans in hopes of cultivating trust and encouraging broader participation in its token campaign and evolving ecosystem.

The platform is under a lot of pressure to do right by all parties, from the historical users, some of whom paid to activate their OpenSea accounts in those early days, to the farmers who have been burning money trying to gain higher ranks in hopes of getting a better drop from the token launch.

While the rumor of the OpenSea ICO may be false, the SEA token initiative has been confirmed as the real deal.

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