Solana’s leading NFT marketplace will pay users to buy and sell NFTs

A popular multi-chain NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, recently announced a new initiative meant to boost the trade of Solana NFTs. The initiative, called Chapter II, will see the platform open up in a number of new ways, including giving traders free SOL if they buy and sell NFTs. In doing so, the platform is focusing more on Solana, its original home.

Magic Eden introduces a number of changes

Magic Eden started aggregating listings from other marketplaces as part of the new initiative, offering a better deal than competitors. In doing so, it provided traders with a single platform where they can manage listings across all platforms. Furthermore, they can see prices and listings for the entire Solana NFT market.

The platform’s next step is to open-source its marketplace smart contract in the near future and remove a co-sign feature. This feature prevented its own listings from being aggregated by other NFT marketplaces. In its recent tweet, the platform announced that, as of May 25th, it would launch NFT aggregation on Solana, embrace composability, and offer a 0.25% maker fee on ME for a limited time. This is how users can earn SOL when their offers are accepted and listings get sold.

2/ On aggregation:

Users can now see & buy listings across marketplaces on Magic Eden.

On Magic Eden, it's now easier than ever to
✅ Manage and update ALL your listings
✅ See true, up-to-date floor price & collection stats

More on aggregation here: https://t.co/o3wVSU9a8i pic.twitter.com/RXQrh2puja

— Magic Eden 🪄 (@MagicEden) May 24, 2023

Thanks to the new move, Magic Eden will be able to address some of the long standing criticisms of its platform. The marketplace has been the leader in Solana NFT trading ever since it launched in late 2021. Many rivaling platforms have criticized it for using closed-source code, and for providing limiting composability opportunities.

The platform is doing something about it, although it remains unclear whether it will still use an escrow contract that takes custody of user-listed NFTs. This has largely been the main criticism of Magic Eden, and many have called it a security threat in the past.

Following the relaunch under the new terms, anyone who lists an NFT for 100 SOL will get 100.25 SOL if the NFT sells. Furthermore, if one makes a collection offer on a certain NFT project and the offer is fulfilled, the platform will provide a 0.25% rebate on the purchase price. Apart from that, users will also be able to earn fees for operating AMM NFT trading pools in the platform’s ecosystem.

3/ On composability:

Today we are taking steps to becoming more composable by:
✅ Open sourcing our marketplace contract in the next few days
✅ Opening up our API with updated documentation
✅ Removing cosign for fulfillment

We'll share a thread this week with more info.

— Magic Eden 🪄 (@MagicEden) May 24, 2023

The competition is rising among NFT marketplaces

Interestingly, Magic Eden’s new moves came around the same time when another rival, Tensor, started seeing an increase in popularity and usage. As a result, the platform managed to take a leading share of Solana blockchain’s NFT market at certain points in the last several weeks.

Tensor has its own rewards model, which is rather similar to Blur — the leading NFT marketplace in Ethereum’s ecosystem. Still, Magic Eden is not out of the race yet, as Tiexo data revealed that the marketplace took the lead over the last week. It claimed 44% of NFT trading volume, while Tensor was in second place with 40%.