TL;DR:
- Magic Eden, a Solana-based NFT marketplace, has quickly established itself as a leader in trading digital collectibles on Bitcoin’s emerging frontier.
- The platform began supporting inscriptions via the Ordinals protocol only a week ago and already accounts for more than half of the total trading volume across marketplaces. On Tuesday, Magic Eden racked up roughly $170,000 worth of inscription sales compared to around $72,000 on the second most popular marketplace, Ordinals Wallet.
- The popularity of the BTC DeGods, a collection of inscriptions released by the creators of the most valuable Solana NFT project, has played an influential role in Magic Eden’s ascension to the top.
Swift Rise
the Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has quickly emerged as a new leader in the Ordinals market, a protocol that enables content like art and text to be inscribed on individual satoshis, the smallest unit of measure that Bitcoin can be divided into. Magic Eden opened the door to trading inscriptions just over a week ago, on March 21, and has grown to represent a majority of Ordinals trading volume across various marketplaces that support them as of yesterday, according to a Dune dashboard created by a pseudonymous on-chain data enthusiast named Domo.
One of the main factors contributing to Magic Eden’s success in the Bitcoin NFT market is its association with BTC DeGods, a collection of inscriptions released by the creators of the most valuable Solana NFT profile picture (PFP) project. The Bitcoin-based collection of profile pictures has notched nearly 35 BTC, or almost $1 million worth of total trading volume since it was released, with the cheapest inscription hovering around $23,000 worth of BTC as of this writing, according to Magic Eden. Additionally, Magic Eden’s ability to corner the market for inscriptions quickly is also a function of its status as an established marketplace, compared to other trading venues that have cropped up only recently and are limited to Bitcoin.
However, Magic Eden still lags behind Ordinals Wallet in terms of total daily transactions, although the trend over the past week suggests that Magic Eden is chipping away at that lead. Yesterday, 404 inscriptions were traded on Magic Eden while Ordinals Wallet facilitated 543 sales, according to Domo’s dashboard. But Magic Eden is handling higher-value Ordinals sales, and the long-standing link between DeGods and Magic Eden on Solana may be translating over to Bitcoin as traders flock to the well-known marketplace’s latest incarnation.
Magic Eden’s success also highlights the growing interest in Bitcoin as a new frontier for trading digital collectibles. The Ordinals protocol has exploded in popularity since it was introduced in January, as traders and developers grow more familiar with NFT-like assets called inscriptions. Magic Eden’s swift embrace of inscriptions on Bitcoin makes sense for a user base that’s already familiar with trading collectibles across multiple networks.
However, Magic Eden’s dominance in the Ordinals market is not set in stone, and even upstart rivals can quickly eat away at market dominance, as Magic Eden has experienced in the past on Solana. Nonetheless, for now, at least, Magic Eden is commanding the most Ordinals trading volume and is poised to continue its growth as a multi-chain marketplace that supports NFTs on Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and now Bitcoin.
Magic Eden’s success in the Bitcoin NFT market is a testament to its established presence in the NFT market and its ability to adapt to new opportunities in the rapidly evolving crypto space. As NFTs continue to gain mainstream adoption, it will be interesting to see how Magic Eden and other marketplaces continue to innovate and grow in this space.
In Summary, Magic Eden’s support for multiple blockchains has also contributed to its success. While the platform began as a marketplace that solely supported NFTs created on Solana, it has since added support for NFTs on other blockchains such as Ethereum and Polygon, allowing traders to buy and sell collectibles across multiple networks.
Moreover, Magic Eden’s quick ability to corner the market for inscriptions is a function of its status as an established marketplace, compared to other trading venues that have cropped up only recently and are limited to Bitcoin. However, the upstart rivals can quickly eat away at market dominance, as Magic Eden itself experienced in the past on Solana.
As Ordinals continues to gain popularity, it will be interesting to see how Magic Eden’s dominance evolves and whether upstart rivals can challenge its position as a market leader. Nonetheless, the platform’s success in a relatively short period underscores the growing demand for NFTs, especially in the context of Bitcoin’s emerging frontier.
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