Magic Eden, the Solana-based NFT marketplace raises $27 million

TL;DR Breakdown

• Sequoia and Paradigm join the $27 million round of Magic Eden.
• The marketplace will allow users to trade different types of non-fungible tokens.
• The investment is part of Sequoia’s plans to expand its presence.

Magic Eden, an NFT marketplace reveals a fundraise of $27 million on Monday. The Series-A round was led by Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and other Solana ventures who will be later introduced. Eden’s marketplace operates by the Solana blockchain to verify non-fungible token transactions.

Magic Eden announced that it will use its cash to develop and launch an NFT mobile app and gaming vertical for the on-the-go minting and trading of NFTs.

The site is designed to help consumers trade assets on the blockchain more cost-effectively, allowing for greater asset liquidity. The company boasts that it’s the most active NFT marketplace on the Solana network, having processed more than SOL 7.5 million transactions in the previous six months. In addition, the platform has over 90% dominance in the secondary market volume.

Magic Eden and its investors are waiting anxiously to see how OpenSea incorporates Solana. According to an article on Coding Forward by Jane Manchun Wong, OpenSeas has already assessed the blockchain. OpenSea did not respond.

Magic Eden rivals OpenSea

OpenSea has around 43% share of the market portion and $23.3 billion in all the total sales. It is a popular place where many people trade their NFTs according to reports and data analysis from DappRadar.

Nevertheless, Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, claims that OpenSea is not that efficient since it operates on the Ethereum blockchain. Magic Eden may surpass OpenSea by being one of the first to market Solana NFTs.

OpenSea had a valuation of about $13 billion when it got acquired in January by investors, but Maguire thinks there’s a gap. The bet was to move quickly and seize the upper hand before OpenSea has a chance to enter Solana.

Apart from Sequoia Capital, the venture capitalists that may have put money into the fundraiser include Solana Ventures, Greylock, and Paradigm. 

Growth continues in the world of Magic Eden

As a result of Magic Eden’s growth in popularity, NFTs on Solana have become increasingly popular. According to analysis and reports DappRadar, the number of users has grown by 191% in the previous 30 days. The growth resulted in having around 200 thousand people. On the other hand, the number of users on the biggest NFT platform, OpenSea, fell by 15% at the same time.

The NFT market had a chance to transform itself by concentrating on gaming NFTs, and it has swiftly outpaced its main competitor Solanart in terms of traffic to be the most known NFT marketplace on Solana.

It also tried to distance itself from OpenSea by establishing MagicDAO, a DAO with the goal of accelerating platform evolution, rewarding supporters, and ultimately growing the project. Magic Eden shared 25k to 30k Magic Tickets to the community as NFT membership passes to the DAO.