I. Introduction

Magic Eden, established nearly three years ago, initially operated as an NFT marketplace within the Solana ecosystem, with a 2% transaction fee on NFT trades. Magic Eden offers more than just a marketplace; it includes an NFT launchpad to help creators release new NFTs and has consistently worked to improve the user experience in secondary market trading, gaining popularity among NFT traders.

 

More than just a marketplace, Magic Eden is backed by the Magic Eden Foundation (ME Foundation), which has developed over ten open-source products related to NFT trading. The well-known Magic Eden platform is among these offerings, but future use cases for the $ME token will span 5-10 products across various ecosystems.

 

Magic Eden is currently the largest NFT marketplace on Solana by transaction volume and supports NFT trading across five chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Base, and Polygon, accounting for 60% of the total NFT market volume. It dominates the Bitcoin ecosystem as the leading platform for ordinal and rune trades, covering over 80% of the volume, with OKX Wallet in second place.

 

According to data from The Block, Magic Eden's daily trading volume recently surged from $1 million to $30 million, peaking at $60 million. The data also shows that Magic Eden captures 80% of all ordinal and rune trading volumes on Bitcoin.

 

With the launch of the ME token, the official roadmap hints at a new direction for the project. Magic Eden will expand beyond being just an NFT marketplace to become a fully on-chain, multi-asset trading platform, reflecting its ambitions to become the Binance of the blockchain. The recent official blog post, "The Future of Crypto Will Be MAGIC", suggests that Magic Eden will soon enable users to trade all assets across all chains in one app, significantly broadening the scope for ME token applications.

 

II. Project Funding

• 2021: Completed a $2.5 million seed round.
• March 2022: Closed a $16.9 million Series A round.
• June 2022: Secured $130 million in Series B funding, reaching a valuation of $1.6 billion.
• July 2022: Magic Eden launched Magic Ventures, a branch focused on Web3 gaming.

 

Investors include top-tier industry institutions such as Paradigm and the Solana Foundation. See the chart below for more details.

 

(Data Source: Rootdata)

 

III. Team Background

Magic Eden has rapidly established itself as the largest NFT trading ecosystem, taking just nine months to capture 90% of the Solana market even during the bear market. Surprisingly, the team behind Magic Eden is made up of four Chinese co-founders:

 

 

• Jack Lu (CEO): An Australian Chinese with three years of experience at Google and BCG.
• Sidney Zhang (CTO): Founded a BTC SaaS platform in 2013, later worked at Uber and Facebook, and co-founded Magic Eden in 2021.
• Zhuoxun Yin (COO): Former dYdX Head of Business Strategy for two and a half years and a Coinbase Product Manager for one and a half years. Joined Magic Eden in October 2021.
• Chris Akhavan (CRO): Previously VP at Electronic Arts, later became Chief Business Officer at Forte before joining Magic Eden.

 

Sidney Zhang has shared his journey of building the Magic Eden team, leveraging his friendships with co-founders who come from major tech companies like Google, Meta, and Uber, each bringing specialized skills that complement each other.

 

IV. Project Development and Industry Comparison

2021 saw a boom in NFTs, giving rise to Magic Eden on Solana. Its growth was unimpeded as the Solana focus prevented competition with Ethereum-centric OpenSea, allowing Magic Eden to thrive. As users began diversifying across chains, platforms like OpenSea and Magic Eden recognized the need for multi-chain compatibility to meet user demand. Both platforms now support multiple chains.

 

Today, Magic Eden is the dominant leader in the NFT marketplace. This success is owed to the team's astute decisions, consistently aligning their offerings with market demands. Magic Eden responded swiftly to multi-chain demand, launched a rune market when ordinals became popular, and maintained its market share through constant project updates.

 

1. User Base Comparison
As of October 22, 2024, user data shows that Magic Eden has overtaken OpenSea in recent statistics. User engagement over one year, 30 days, and even the past seven days reveals that Magic Eden and OpenSea combined account for over 50% of total NFT platform users. Both platforms have reached a competitive balance in the market.

 

2. Trading Volume and Revenue
Magic Eden has become the leading platform in overall trading revenue. Starting from December 2023, Magic Eden has contributed over half of the entire market's trading revenue, peaking at $5.99 million in April 2024, of which $4.85 million was from Magic Eden. Despite a gradual decrease in market revenue, Magic Eden continues to consistently contribute over 50% of the total.

 

3. Market Performance
Magic Eden’s active engagement is now the highest in the market, attributed to its popular diamond points program. By strategically expanding into emerging markets like ordinals, it has attracted a significant user base. With plans for further cross-chain products and improvements, Magic Eden aims to create a positive cycle of user retention and attraction, positioning itself to make substantial moves in Web3.

 

V. About the ME Token

The TGE (Token Generation Event) for NFT trading platforms has long been a debated topic, with platforms like dYdX and LooksRare issuing tokens and Blur starting points-based programs. Unlike others, OpenSea has yet to enter this arena. Magic Eden recognized the trend and introduced a diamond points program earlier this year, rewarding eligible wallets with 400 diamonds each. This user-centric approach has made Magic Eden highly popular.

 

The team will release more details on the ME token’s economy on November 18.

 

VI. Conclusion and Outlook

As the current leader in the NFT market, Magic Eden holds 60% of NFT trading volume. But Magic Eden is more than just an NFT trading platform—it continues building towards future trends. At the 2024 Breakpoint, Jack Lu, co-founder of Magic Eden, shared a vision of “Pay anything, buy anything,” outlining a future where cross-chain token transactions enable asset purchases across different chains.

 

Magic Eden’s guiding principles for MAGIC include:

• [M]ake crypto easier for everyone
• [A]ll assets, all chains, 1 app
• [G]row the space
• [I]n it for the long term
• [C]ommunity transparency

With the crypto market warming up, Bitcoin at $88,000, and Magic Eden’s TGE in the pipeline, we could be on the cusp of a market surge.

 

References
https://community.magiceden.io/blog/the-future-of-crypto-will-be-magic
https://biquanzhijia.com/archives/26890
https://cryptowesearch.com/articles/magic-eden-ecosystem-me-token-launch