NFT
Magic Eden, the main Solana NFT market, continued its enlargement to Ethereum in the present day by rolling out assist for a handful of main collections, together with the Bored Ape Yacht Membership, Pudgy Penguins, and Otherside. Further initiatives will likely be added within the days forward.
The “Magic Ethen” push was introduced in August as step one in Magic Eden’s multi-chain evolution, first revealed again in June when the agency introduced a $130 million elevate at a $1.6 billion valuation. Quite than launch its personal native Ethereum tech, Magic Eden is aggregating listings from different marketplaces and integrating them inside its platform.
Jack Lu, Magic Eden co-founder and CEO, appeared on the newest episode of Decrypt’s gm podcast. The wide-ranging interview covers numerous subjects, together with Magic Eden’s personal fast ascent—it launched only one 12 months in the past this month—amid a unstable wider NFT market, plus the worth Lu sees in NFTs throughout varied use instances.
Presenting Magic Ethen: the quickest, most feature-packed ETH aggregator. Your first vacation spot to purchase NFTs utilizing ETH, SOL, or fiat.
Debuting with a number of collections in the present day, are you able to guess which of them? pic.twitter.com/tSU9f2DdhJ
— Magic Ethen 🪄 (@MagicEden) September 20, 2022
In response to Lu, going multi-chain was Magic Eden’s plan from the beginning, courting again to its earliest pitch decks for buyers. Nevertheless, the corporate opted to begin with Solana, which he stated was “seen as a frontier ecosystem” final 12 months. Magic Eden rapidly leapfrogged the small, present Solana marketplaces and have become the dominant participant in that market.
When it got here time to announce Ethereum assist in August, Lu admitted that the Magic Eden group was “fearful about” the response from its passionately SOL-centric viewers. Nevertheless, he doesn’t imagine that the markets are as divided as they may appear on the floor.
“There’s really very excessive levels of consumer overlap between the 2 ecosystems,” Lu instructed gm co-hosts Daniel Roberts and Stephen Graves. “It isn’t so mutually solely tribal. Initially, that is what I assumed too—it’s like SOL solely, ETH solely. However really, as we dug [in] extra to study it, really, a number of the SOL customers got here from Ethereum.”
Lu stated that a number of the early Solana NFT customers had really come over to the platform after first experimenting on Ethereum. Whereas there are nonetheless examples of tribalism amongst notable collectors in each areas, there are additionally NFT personalities who’ve performed in each areas.
Solana Unicorn Magic Eden Expands NFT Market to Ethereum
“For us to maneuver from SOL to ETH, it was really very pure,” stated Lu. “A whole lot of these customers have been like, ‘Oh yeah, properly, I’ve received a MetaMask [wallet] already, I already know sort of in regards to the panorama. It is sensible {that a} Solana market desires to maneuver to Ethereum, as properly.’”
So far as why Magic Eden expanded to Ethereum, there’s an apparent reply: it’s the biggest ecosystem when it comes to total buying and selling quantity, and holds a lot of the highest-value initiatives. There are additionally probably loads of customers which have solely ever collected Ethereum NFTs. However Lu additionally pointed to “issues that we’ve got lengthy admired” over within the Ethereum house.
“There’s some crucial consumer motivations,” he defined. “There are wonderful NFT communities, NFT collections, and NFT creators and tradition within the Ethereum ecosystem.”
Lu stated that in increasing throughout a number of NFT ecosystems—with Ethereum the primary of doubtless many additions to come back—each Magic Eden and the broader Solana NFT house can be taught from Ethereum’s NFT tradition, and even “port over a few of these learnings.”