Two users of #opensea , the largest marketplace for non-fungible tokens, accused the site of trading in unregistered securities. But have now withdrawn the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs Anthony Shnayderman and Itai Bronshtein have voluntarily withdrawn their complaint filed against Ozone Networks, which operates the OpenSea trading platform. The marketplace's customers made the decision after Judge Cecilia Altonaga allowed OpenSea to submit the case to arbitration. This is an alternative dispute resolution process that takes place privately: faster and at the lowest cost than regular litigation.

This implies that a class action lawsuit would not be able to set a precedent that could widely affect the NFT market.

OpenSea said the plaintiffs' clients have agreed to its terms that all claims can be resolved in arbitration. Plaintiffs' attorney Adam Moskowitz explained that the plaintiffs “had no choice but to dismiss the litigation.”

The users sued OpenSea in September, claiming that the NFTs they bought on the platform turned out to be unregistered investment contracts, so they were worthless in the United States due to their “illegal nature.” The plaintiffs mentioned that in August, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) threatened the platform that it could sue it for digital art trading.

Given that OpenSea could find itself in a tight spot, Schneiderman and Bronstein took advantage of the situation and complained about the platform as well. In the lawsuit, they cited the SEC's successful actions against #NFT​ projects Stoner Cats 2 and Impact Theory, where non-interchangeable tokens were deemed unregistered securities.

Last November, OpenSea was forced to lay off half of its employees, and in January, the platform's co-founder Devin Finzer announced his readiness to sell the company due to declining trading volumes.

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