Lyft’s longtime CFO Brian Roberts, who took the company public, announced Monday he was leaving the ride-sharing company he joined in 2014 to take on the same role in the OpenSea NFT marketplace. Roberts confirmed earlier reports in a Twitter post.

The departure is another sign of how executives and engineers are migrating from the “traditional” list of big tech companies to the so-called web3 crypto startups. OpenSea is one of several fast-growing startups in the crypto space, which has received renewed attention from venture capitalists who have minted dozens of crypto unicorns in the past two years.

OpenSea has been the poster child startup of the burgeoning NFT industry. The startup raised a valuation of $1.5 billion this summer. The Information reported last month that OpenSea had received offers to raise at a valuation of $10 billion.

NFTs have had a particularly hot 2021, and while many anticipated that the boom earlier this year would be followed by a cold winter of slack, the alternative asset class has continued to enjoy ebbs and dips in enthusiasm while serving as a lightning rod for conversations and speculations online. . After an extremely active dip, OpenSea’s business has cooled off a bit, but the market still recorded almost $1.9 billion in transaction volume in the last 30 days across more than 240,000 active crypto wallet addresses.