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NFT marketplace Magic Eden is going back to its Solana roots and paying traders to use the platform with a so-called “chapter two” initiative.
It will include efforts to launch NFT aggregation on Solana, open source more of its code, and—for a limited time—pay traders a small bonus to buy and sell Solana NFTs.
Magic Eden has in recent months lost its long-held spot as the second-most-popular NFT marketplace behind OpenSea. It now holds only 2.1% of overall NFT market share by trading volume, according to CoinGecko. Although Magic Eden is the leading Solana marketplace, it has also faced pressure on the blockchain from upstart marketplace Trensor, which raised $3 million in a March seed round. Magic Eden was valued at $1.6 billion following a $130 million funding round last June.
In an effort to compete with OpenSea and Blur, which uses crypto airdrops to incentivize traders, Magic Eden will institute a -0.25% fee for NFTs. Essentially it will pay traders SOL whenever they sell a Solana NFT or whenever their offer to buy a Solana NFT is accepted. If you list an NFT for 100 SOL, or about $1924, on the marketplace, when it sells you will get 100.25 SOL, an extra $5, Magic Eden wrote in a Twitter thread. If you make an offer on an NFT worth 100 SOL, you will get an extra 0.25 SOL once your bid is accepted. The amount of SOL a user receives will be higher depending on the price of the NFT.
The new initiative and refocus on Solana comes as the marketplace has expanded to also list Ethereum and Bitcoin NFTs. The pivot back to Solana is also a vote of confidence in the blockchain, which has seen a flurry of new activity and is the third-most-active behind Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of trading volume.
The initiative was mostly well received by NFT traders on Crypto Twitter. Others cheekily pointed out that the way Magic Eden wrote “chapter two” could be easily confused.
I read this as Chapter 11, Chapter II is way better ????????
— Permissionless II (@Permissionless) May 25, 2023
I like the direction Magic Eden is taking. The recent moves are great for the NFT ecosystem and Solana NFTs. Healthy competition often fosters innovation and drives progress. #magiceden #nfts #solannft #nftmarketplace https://t.co/1OtXOyqXba
— Zoe (@zozosfriesverse) May 25, 2023
whats genuinely amazing is i haven’t seen anyone besides like one or two people mad at magic eden for that announcement
do you understand how insane that is ?
— bunjil (@notbunjil) May 25, 2023
Magic Eden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
