Solana Unicorn Magic Eden Expands NFT Marketplace to Ethereum

Alongside an announcement of new VC funding in June which valued the startup at $1.6 billionat the top Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden said it would explore expanding to more chains in the coming months. Now we know it will take the largest NFT market first: Ethereum.

Magic Eden confirmed today that the next blockchain addition will indeed be Ethereum, the network that hosts the vast majority of the most popular NFT collections and projects—and by far the largest market for NFT trading measured by volume.

Unlike with Solana, Magic Eden will aggregate Ethereum NFT listings from other marketplaces, with a representative narrating Decrypt that it would be a “pure aggregator” on Ethereum with “no proprietary listings.” This means that listed NFTs will not be escrow, which is currently the case for Magic Eden’s Solana NFTs.

During the month of August, Magic Eden will begin rolling out Ethereum NFT support across the platform, including the launch pad (used to create, or create, new NFT projects), the new list tool that allows projects to create an “allow list” of users for NFT mints, and its release calendar highlighting notable upcoming NFT collectible releases.

The launchpad will add Ethereum support starting with EZU, a new profile picture project from the creators of Psychedelics Anonymous. Beyond these initial steps, Magic Eden will also conduct cross-currency trading tests that enable the purchase of Solana or Ethereum NFTs using ETH, SOL or a credit card. Magic Eden plans to add multi-chain analysis tools as well.

An NFT is a blockchain token that can represent ownership of an item, such as digital goods, including profile pictures, artwork, and collectibles. The NFT market exploded in popularity last year, generating $25 billion value of trading volume, per DappRadar.

Ethereum and its various side chain and layer-2 networks commanded the vast majority of this number, and that trend has continued into 2022. The platform hosts notable projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Art blocksand Axie Infinityamong others.

However, Solana has emerged as a rising alternative network for NFTs, with lower fees, faster transactions and less environmental impact than Ethereum currently (although an upcoming upgrade to Ethereum could change this dramatically). Notable projects like Solana Monkey Business, Okay Bearsand DeGods has appeared on Solana since late last year, with over $2.5 billion in Solana NFT trading volume to date, as of CryptoSlam.

Magic Eden is currently the largest player in the Solana area, consistently commanding 90% or more of trading volume, even as OpenSea – the leading Ethereum marketplace –added Solana support in April. Now Magic Eden is expanding to OpenSea’s grass pitch.

OpenSea and Magic Eden have routinely traded barbs on social media. Only recently has OpenSea raised the criticism of Magic Eden’s escrow-based trading model, where the marketplace takes care of seller’s NFTs once the assets are listed on the platform. Criticism of the model has grown in the Solana NFT community recently.

In return Magic Eden has prodded OpenSea about the “inactive listings” situation it encountered earlier this year, where some users’ valuable Ethereum NFTs were sold for below market prices due to a user interface issue. OpenSea eventually refunded affected users with ETH worth $1.8 millionalthough a collector sued the marketplace over the problem.

With both marketplaces set to battle it out on both the Ethereum and Solana fronts going forward, we’ll see if the multi-chain sales competition ultimately matches the fevered rhetoric.