OpenSea to Launch Non-Custodial App for NFTs and Crypto

At Consensus Miami, Adam Hollander, OpenSea’s chief marketing officer, announced the company is building a non-custodial mobile app that will let users trade NFTs, meme coins, perpetual futures and major cryptocurrencies across 26 chains without bridging. The app is designed to keep wallets and assets together in a single portfolio.

The mobile product will create a wallet in seconds, allow users to convert fiat to crypto via Apple Pay and let them spend funds across multiple chains while retaining private keys. Hollander told the audience, “The average person just needs to know that they have a certain amount of money and they can go buy the things that they want to buy.” He said the interface aims to simplify basic transactions without removing options for advanced users.

OpenSea rebuilt its platform about a year ago under a project called OS2. Hollander described the work as a rails-level redesign intended to support broader discovery, trading and ownership features across tokens, NFTs and other on-chain assets that the original architecture could not handle.

Usage data provided at the event showed more than one million wallets joined a recent OpenSea rewards program and hundreds of thousands of unique users are active on the platform across token trading, NFTs and other products. The rewards program was switched off about a month ago, and Hollander said most current users are crypto-native and bring non-custodial wallets to OpenSea.

The OpenSea Mobile beta targets users outside the existing crypto community. About 600 beta testers are participating in one-on-one, hour-long sessions with OpenSea’s marketing and engineering teams to collect feedback and refine the product ahead of a wider release.

DeFi integrations will not be part of the initial mobile release. The company plans to focus on direct asset ownership rather than routing funds into protocols for yield. Perpetual futures are included in the app, and additional DeFi connections may be evaluated later. Hollander said OpenSea’s NFT data gives the platform a discovery edge by showing cultural on-chain behavior that can inform recommendations.

OpenSea is also developing an MCP server and API to support automated or agentic trading, which would allow agents to buy, sell, list, trade and bid across NFTs, meme coins and major cryptocurrencies. The company’s next steps are the app launch and marketing aimed at users beyond the current crypto community.

Hollander contrasted OpenSea’s non-custodial approach with bank and exchange products that rely on custodial wallets, noting that many large custodial platforms do not fully support NFTs. He added, “Nobody can touch it with a 100-foot pole.”

Hollander joined OpenSea a little over a year ago after selling a software company to Microsoft. He previously served as chief operating officer of a medical education company and spent years collecting and trading digital assets. He said his public advocacy for digital ownership influenced the product direction now under development.