The decentralized NFT marketplace Magic Eden officially launched in September 2019, allowing users to list, mint, purchase, and engage in secondary trading of their NFTs. Built on the Solana blockchain, Magic Eden benefits from extremely fast transaction processing speeds. Solana can handle up to 65,000 transactions per second, compared to Ethereum’s 30 transactions per second, providing a significant advantage. Magic Eden has quickly become the leading NFT marketplace on Solana, capturing over 90% of the NFT trading volume on that network. Compared to OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace on Ethereum, Magic Eden also stands out, with unique features such as a launchpad and lower fees, giving it an unparalleled competitive edge over other platforms.

The team behind Magic Eden is dedicated to filling the gaps in the NFT market, aiming to enhance public access to the NFT space through stronger technical support and open secondary trading opportunities.

The Origin of Magic Eden

After observing user demands in the NFT market, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Sidney Zhang, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Lu, Chief Operating Officer (COO) Zhuoxun Yin, and Chief Engineer Zhuojie Zhou came together to create Magic Eden. All four have significantly contributed to cryptocurrency management consulting, consumer internet, and DeFi. Recognizing the innovations behind Solana blockchain technology, they decided to build Magic Eden on this platform, focusing on superior product design and lower transaction fees. The growth rate of Magic Eden is astonishing; launched in November 2021, it has already become the second most popular NFT marketplace, with a valuation of $1.6 billion, though it still trails behind the market leader OpenSea, valued at $13 billion.

The Uniqueness of Magic Eden

In addition to leveraging Solana, Magic Eden places significant emphasis on improving user experience, specifically including:

Launchpad

The most important feature of Magic Eden to date is the Launchpad for minting and reviewing NFTs, which is designed to simplify the process for creators. To mint an NFT on Magic Eden, creators do not need a strong technical background; they only need to provide documentation showcasing their intended work and its underlying meaning, while Magic Eden takes care of the rest of the process.

This allows creators to focus more on their artwork itself. Once a project is approved, Magic Eden also offers marketing support to enhance project exposure and influence. Additionally, the Launchpad includes community features, enabling creators to share their work and exchange creative insights with the community.

However, it is worth noting that Magic Eden has high standards for project quality. Fewer than 5% of total applications successfully pass the review to go live on the platform. The platform prioritizes safety and reliability during the review process to ensure that only high-quality projects are launched in its marketplace.

Popular Collections Leaderboard

Magic Eden features a Popular Collections Leaderboard, which allows users to view the top-performing NFT projects. This leaderboard enhances the user experience from another angle. It can display data over various time frames, such as the past 24 hours, making it ideal for users looking to focus on higher-quality projects for potential trading profits.

Attribute Filter

Magic Eden’s search filters enable users to find all projects corresponding to specific attributes, thereby reducing the time needed to locate particular NFTs. Users can select attributes like background or artistic style to discover all projects on the platform that meet those criteria.

Auction

The auction feature is another interesting aspect, supporting secondary trading on the Solana network. Buyers can assess the value of collections and make bids based on their evaluations. Once a new bid is placed, the seller can accept or reject it. If they accept, the buyer can opt for an immediate transaction or continue to raise their bid.

The auction functionality reduces transaction costs for secondary traders, enhancing their willingness to trade. For buyers, it allows them to acquire their desired NFTs within their financial means.

Eden Games

Thanks to the support of several gaming projects, Magic Eden has successfully integrated blockchain games into its business model. Its gaming segment, Eden Games, accounts for over 90% of the secondary trading market.

Magic Eden Wallet

Magic Eden Wallet is a cross-chain cryptocurrency wallet centered around NFTs, offering self-custody features. It provides functionalities like NFT portfolio and rare asset management, delivering users a secure and convenient digital asset management experience.

Main Features

Provides users with the means to manage NFTs across multiple chains, with functionalities centered around the services that NFTs provide:

• NFT Portfolio Management: Allows users to quickly view and manage their entire NFT collection, including price tracking, trading history, and real-time prices, facilitating the management of NFT assets.
• Market Integration: Integrated with its own trading platform, enabling users to place orders, buy, and sell directly within the wallet plugin.
• Token Conversion: This service allows users to exchange tokens within the wallet, conduct cross-chain transactions, or make direct purchases using credit cards (MoonPay), allowing for quick access to funds for buying NFTs.
• Ordinals Support: This integrates the trading market for Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens while also supporting the management of rare assets received by users.

Security and Network Resources

Magic Eden Wallet is developed in collaboration with the Exodus wallet team and audited by Halborn, with Blowfish scanning transactions to enhance security. It employs a hierarchical deterministic (HD) architecture, generating a 12-word recovery phrase and private keys to ensure users can access their assets without relying on third parties. Magic Eden Wallet supports hardware wallet integration and two-factor authentication (2FA) to enhance security further, providing advice to prevent phishing attacks and scams. Users are advised to carefully safeguard their recovery phrases and private keys to prevent unauthorized access, ensuring the safety of their digital assets.

The design philosophy of Magic Eden Wallet emphasizes user privacy and does not store any user assets, making it a secure and reliable choice, especially in the increasingly growing cryptocurrency market. Currently, Magic Eden Wallet supports networks including Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and Polygon, with plans to gradually open source to improve transparency; the keychain module has already been open-sourced.

Collaboration Between Magic Eden & Aethir

Distributed GPU cloud infrastructure Aethir has announced a partnership with the globally leading multi-chain NFT platform Magic Eden. The two companies aim to integrate their respective technological advantages to create a unified gaming ecosystem. Aethir will provide enterprise-grade GPU-as-a-Service infrastructure to support Magic Eden’s NFT platform, making it the preferred NFT platform for Aethir’s gaming clients.

With the rapid development of blockchain gaming projects, the demand for GPU computing power is rising. Aethir’s distributed cloud infrastructure can supply the necessary raw GPU resources for Web3 gaming projects, ensuring that global users receive a seamless and immersive gaming experience. As a leader in the NFT space, Magic Eden will support blockchain games and Web3 innovations, providing significant backing for the creativity of various stakeholders in the gaming industry.

Magic Eden offers a project launch platform for game developers, enabling them to mint NFT collections and present them to NFT collectors or gamers. Paul Thind, Aethir’s revenue head, emphasized the role of this collaboration in accelerating innovation in the Web3 gaming sector and the synergistic effects of Aethir’s distributed GPU cloud platform and Magic Eden’s community-focused NFT marketplace.

ME Token

The non-profit foundation ME Foundation of the multi-chain NFT market Magic Eden has announced the launch of its ecosystem token, ME. This token will be used to enhance cross-chain transactions, drive the expansion of the NFT platform, and facilitate the integration of decentralized applications (dApps). The design of the ME token aims to improve the capabilities of Web3 consumer dApps by promoting cross-chain trading of digital assets. Magic Eden plans to be the first platform to officially adopt ME as its ecosystem token, which means that this token may also be adopted by other third-party dApps in the future. The ME token community will lead three significant paradigm shifts for dApps:

• Transitioning from single-chain to cross-chain
• Shifting from fragmented experiences to end-to-end user experiences
• Moving from desktop applications to mobile applications

Magic Eden also announced that its cryptocurrency wallet, Magic Eden Wallet, has officially launched its mobile app on iOS and Android systems. ME token claims will be conducted through Magic Eden Wallet, providing momentum for cross-chain dApps and fostering the growth of its ecosystem. The wallet will also feature an ME rewards mechanism after the token’s issuance.

ME Diamonds

Magic Eden’s Diamond Rewards Program is a user loyalty initiative designed to reward long-time players and active users on the platform. Here are some key details about the Magic Eden Diamonds:

1. Diamond Rewards Program: This program is tailored for loyal users, incentivizing them to trade on the Magic Eden platform. Users can earn diamonds by purchasing, listing, and bidding on NFTs, with these diamonds serving as reward currency within the platform, akin to accumulating membership points.
2. How to Earn: Users can earn diamonds through various means, including bulk purchasing NFTs, participating in high-volume bids, and listing NFTs on the platform. Loyalty also impacts the number of diamonds earned; the more frequently users engage with Magic Eden, the higher their loyalty and the more diamonds they accumulate.
3. Usage of Diamonds: While diamonds cannot be directly traded for profit, users can leverage the accumulated diamonds to enhance their chances of future rewards and may potentially convert them to other tokens, such as $NFT.
4. Cross-Chain Expansion: Initially, the Diamond Rewards Program targeted users on the Solana chain but has since expanded to other chains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polygon, aiming to reward loyal users from the past, present, and future.
5. Community Engagement: Magic Eden has also partnered with Non-Fungible DAO to further promote the commercialization of NFTs and the development of the ecosystem. The two plan to launch a dedicated $NFT token to reward active NFT traders.

These initiatives enhance platform activity and attract more NFT players to participate in the Magic Eden ecosystem, potentially positioning them for rewarding opportunities in future airdrops.

Magic Eden’s Fee Structure

Another significant advantage of Magic Eden is its low fees compared to its competitors.

First, listing or delisting projects on Magic Eden is completely free, and creators can set their own royalty rates. Second, Magic Eden charges a transaction fee of only 2% per sale, whereas OpenSea requires a 2.5% fee. For projects already listed, Magic Eden treats all fairly, with auction bids set at a minimum of 50% of the creator’s price. Additionally, buyers can place bids without incurring any fees. All these factors have helped Magic Eden gain a competitive edge and rise rapidly in the market.

How to use Magic Eden

Buyers and sellers use Magic Eden differently. For sellers, the only requirement is to apply for listing. As mentioned earlier, they simply need to submit their artwork information and wait for approval.

For buyers, the following steps must be followed:

1. Users need to have a Solana-compatible wallet, such as Exodus Wallet.

2. Deposit SOL tokens into the wallet. If SOL is needed, users can first go to cryptocurrency exchanges like Gate.io to purchase and then transfer it to their wallet.

3. Visit the official Magic Eden website and connect the wallet. Click on “Select Wallet” in the top right corner of the webpage and follow the prompts.

4. Choose the desired collectible and click “Buy Now.”

5. If you haven’t found a collectible you like yet, browse through Magic Eden to discover projects that attract you and carefully research those projects and their creators. Once you are determined, proceed with step four. In addition to purchasing, you can also choose to “Place Bid” to propose your estimated price to the seller, who will then decide whether to accept or reject your bid.

Magic Eden and Open Sea

Magic Eden and OpenSea are both leaders in the NFT space, each with its unique attractions for users. However, comparisons between the two marketplaces have been ongoing, and newcomers to the NFT realm often ask: What are the differences between Magic Eden and OpenSea, and which one is better?

The main distinction between Magic Eden and OpenSea lies in the blockchains they are built on. Magic Eden operates on the Solana network, known for its scalability and efficiency, while OpenSea is built on Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain and the hub of DeFi. As both platforms are built on different blockchains, users need to use the respective tokens to purchase NFTs—Magic Eden uses SOL, while OpenSea uses ETH.

Despite being less than a year old, Magic Eden has already shown the capability to compete with OpenSea. In the past week, Magic Eden’s trading volume surpassed 2 million, compared to OpenSea’s 360,000 during the same period. However, it is still too early for Magic Eden to completely overtake OpenSea as the leading NFT marketplace, as the latter still accounts for 80% of all on-chain NFT transactions.

Conclusion

As more people begin to pay attention to Solana, the future development possibilities for Magic Eden are also increasing. With the growth of the network, Magic Eden as a company is continuously expanding its business scale and launching various features to broaden its influence and strengthen its position within the Web3 community. Following the introduction of its governance protocol, Magic Ticket, Magic Eden recently announced support for multi-chain operations and expansion into Ethereum. These developments make us believe it could evolve into the next authority in the NFT and Web3 space.