What is Magic Eden: Solana's NFT Marketplace?

Despite being around for almost a decade, the past two years have seen exponential growth and popularity of the NFT market. Benefiting the most from the sudden exposure is the digital art and collectibles industry. Celebrities and companies now recognize non-fungible tokens representing ownership of unique items as a lucrative industry.

Companies are now tapping into this industry with products like wallets and marketplaces. Using Solana as its home network, Magic Eden is another project that has entered the industry to provide user-piloted solutions and fill apparent gaps in the NFT industry.

In this article, we will discuss Magic Eden, its unique features, and explain how users can interact with the product.

What Is Magic Eden?

Debuting in September 2021, Magic Eden is a decentralized NFT marketplace where users can launch, mint, buy, and secondarily trade their non-fungible tokens.

Magic Eden is built on the Solana blockchain and benefits from the fast processing time on the network. The Solana blockchain, being able to process up to 65k transactions compared to Ethereum’s 30 transactions/second processing time, gives Magic Eden a big advantage.

Since its debut, Magic Eden has risen quickly and now stands as the premier NFT marketplace on Solana’s network, with over 90% of the NFT trading volume on the network. Magic Eden also rivals the biggest marketplace, OpenSea, built on the Ethereum network. Magic Eden’s unique features, such as its launchpad and reduced fees give it an advantage over OpenSea and other competing marketplaces.

Source: magiceden.io

Magic Eden is a result of the dream of a team with intense chemistry to fill gaps within the NFT marketplace industry. Magic Eden strives to improve access to the world of NFTs with technical support and a platform that supports secondary trading.

Where Did Magic Eden Come From?

The brilliance of the Magic Eden NFT Marketplace is owed to four friends with backgrounds in crypto management consulting, consumer internet, and DeFi. CTO Sidney Zhang, CEO Jack Lu, COO Zhuoxun Yin, and Chief Engineer Zhuojie Zhou came together after noticing the needs among users in NFT marketplaces.

After recognizing the innovation behind Solana’s blockchain technology, they settled on building their product on the network, focusing on better product design and reduced transaction fees.

Since its launch in November 2021, Magic Eden has quickly risen in the ranks and become the second most popular nft marketplace. The company is now valued at $1.6 billion, compared to the biggest market place OpenSea, which stands at $13 billion.

What Makes Magic Eden Unique?

Aside from the apparent advantage Magic Eden gets from building its product on the Solana blockchain, the founders of magic Eden have taken special care to incorporate features that improve the user experience. These features include:

Launchpad

Source: magiceden.io

By far Magic Eden’s most significant feature, the launchpad is the marketplace’s minting and vetting platform aimed at simplifying the minting process for creators. The process requires little technical experience from creators. To get through to the program, all creators need to do is provide files that show proof of their work and communicate the message behind their project. The rest of the minting is then handled by Magic Eden.

This feature lets creators focus on developing their skills and creating the best projects. If the project is accepted, creators are provided with marketing support that applies strategies to increase the exposure and reach of the project. The launchpad also includes a community feature that allows creators to collaborate and share feedback on each other’s projects.

However, it is worthy of note that less than 5% of all applications make it through the process and get launched. Magic Eden prioritizes security and reliability, so the launchpad process includes a vetting activity that confirms the reliability and quality of projects launched on the marketplace.

Popular Collections

Source: magiceden.io

As part of the founder’s goal to improve the user experience on NFT marketplaces, Magic Eden includes a special feature that lets users see the best performing NFT projects in one place. Popular Collections is merely a collection of the NFT projects that seem to be turning many heads in the market at any specific time. This feature allows users who are looking to make a profit by trading NFTs to focus their attention on the best projects.

Attributes Filter

Magic Eden includes a search filter that allows users to sift faster through available NFT projects for NFTs by reducing the search results window to projects that include the selected attribute. This attribute could be a background or art style that appears in all the collections in the search results.

Auction

Another interesting feature is the Magic Eden Auction which supports secondary trading on the Solana network. The auction feature allows buyers to assess tokens and place a bid based on their assessment of the collection’s value. Sellers can then either accept or reject this bid. If they accept the bid, the buyer has an option to raise the bid or go through with the transaction immediately.

This feature encourages secondary traders to sell their tokens without paying too much for selling. Conversely, buyers can buy as many NFTs as wanted at a range they can afford.

Eden Games

Source: magiceden.io

With the help of several gaming projects, Magic Eden brings blockchain gaming into its business model. Eden games, the marketplace’s gaming platform, is a big success, accounting for more than 90% of the in-game secondary trading market.

Magic Eden Fees and Trading Charges

Another great advantage Magic Eden has over its competitors is its transaction and charging fees which are relatively low.

At the foundation, listing and delisting projects on the marketplace are entirely free. Magic Eden supports its creators and allows them to set the rates for their royalty fees. Additionally, Magic Eden charges only 2% per transaction, which is a fair price compared to the 2.5% charged on OpenSea. The marketplace also places value on listed projects as the minimum bid is 50% of the set price by the creator. Making a bid also attracts no additional charges. These advantages are the main reason for Magic Eden’s success.

How to Interact With Magic Eden

Interacting with Magic Eden can be done in two ways. For sellers, the process is straightforward; the only step is applying for a listing. The application process, as explained above, requires sellers only to submit files showing their work and wait to get approved.

The process is just as easy for prospective buyers, but it includes some steps.

• To start with, a potential Magic Eden user needs to have a compatible Solana wallet like Exodus Wallet.

• You need to deposit SOL tokens into your wallet. You can first purchase SOL on crypto exchange platforms like Gate.io and transfer the tokens using your wallet address.

• After depositing SOL in the digital wallet, the next step is to visit the Magic Eden website and link your wallet to the Magic Eden NFT marketplace. To do this, click “Select Wallet” in the upper right corner of the website and follow the prompts.

• Now that your wallet is connected, you look for your desired collection and click “buy now.”

• However, if you do not have a collection in mind, browse the marketplace to find projects you like and conduct research on those projects and their creators. Once you’ve conducted enough research and found the right one, go back to the Magic Eden NFT marketplace and buy. As an alternative, you can click “make an offer” to bid your desired price for the collection. The seller will either reject or accept your bid.

Magic Eden vs Open Sea

Magic Eden and OpenSea are the top competitors in the NFT industry. Both options provide users with unique experiences and varying benefits. Nevertheless, a recurring question, especially for newbies in the NFT world, is what separates both marketplaces and which is better?

Magic Eden and OpenSea are largely distinguished by the networks on which they are built. While Magic Eden chooses Solana, a network known for scalability and effectiveness, as its home, OpenSea is backed by the Ethereum network, the second largest blockchain network and central to the DeFi movement. As a result of their supporting networks, NFTs are purchased using separate coins on both networks. On Magic Eden, traders use SOL tokens to purchase NFTs, while Ether or ETH is used for trading on OpenSea.

Merely a year old, Magic Eden has put up a good fight against OpenSea, recording up to 2 million transactions in the past week compared to OpenSea’s meager 360 thousand. However, OpenSea remains in the lead, accounting for up to 80% of NFT transactions across all blockchains.

Conclusion

As the Solana blockchain network garners more attention, the possibility of Magic Eden growing much larger than it already has rises. Even as the network grows, Magic Eden as a company is expanding its business model and continuously introducing features that increase its reach and solidify its presence in Web3 communities. Not only has Magic Eden introduced its governance protocol, Magic Ticket, the company recently announced that it is adding multi-chain support and expanding its market to Ethereum. This new development and upcoming developments point to the fact that Magic Eden may one day become a formidable authority in the NFT and Web3 industries.