OpenSea, the world’s largest nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace by trading volume, announced mass layoffs on Thursday, joining a slew of crypto companies in cutting headcount amid a crypto winter.

According to CEO Devin Finzer, OpenSea is pressing ahead with plan to cut approximately 20% of its workforce, citing the company’s need to adapt to current market conditions.

“We need to prepare the company for the possibility of a prolonged downturn,” Devin Finzer said in a tweet, adding:

“The changes we’re making today put us in a position to maintain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios (5 years at the current volume), and give us high confidence that we will only have to go through this process once.”

OpenSea is confronting a different situation that a cryptocurrency market winter wiped billions of dollars from the value of popular tokens. The tightening of monetary policies in major Western economies contributed to a global sell-off in a range of risky assets.

According to data from Dune Analytics, NFT sales volumes on Opensea fell by more than 70 per cent in June from the previous month.

Volume on the marketplace, which generates revenue from a 2.5% fee on all transactions, fell to just $695 million in June.

Crypto companies, which undergo mass layoffs, include Gemini, Crypto.com, BlockFi and Coinbase.