Magic Eden: The Community-Centric Marketplace

Listen now: iTunes | Google Podcasts | Soundcloud | Spotify | YouTube

Magic Eden: The Community-Centric Marketplace

Any coverage of web3 nowadays is likely to see a polarizing take on NFTs. On one hand, NFTs have been critiqued as “overpriced jpegs” or “get rich quick schemes.” On the other, evangelists have left their jobs to become full-time collectors, paying into the 6-figures to join NFT alpha groups and hunt for the next big mint.

Objectively, NFTs have been the most popular onramp of new consumers into crypto. A successful onramp should be highly accessible, and Magic Eden has built the most accessible platform — low cost, high speed, and clean user experience. In just nine months of existence, Magic Eden captured 92% share on Solana, seeing 40,000 NFT transactions daily across 22 million unique monthly sessions. At the end of May, Magic Eden’s largest month yet, daily trading volume surpassed Opensea.

But is this durable? While many can see the long-term potential in use cases like helping artists more directly monetize and earn royalties on secondary sales — it’s also true that some activity is speculative. But if one looks more closely within a subset of the communities that might otherwise be dismissed as “PFP projects”, and more broadly into emerging applications of the technology, it’s hard to not be excited.

Earlier this year, we invested in Magic Eden at the Series A, as it was quickly emerging as the fastest-growing and leading NFT marketplace on Solana. Working with co-founders Zhuoxun, Jack, Sidd, and Zhuojie quickly gave us even more conviction that this is a team we had to back. That’s why we’re thrilled to co-lead the Series B alongside our friends at Electric Capital.

The Magic Eden team is one of the highest-velocity teams we’ve met. If speed of experimentation is a predictor of success, Magic Eden is a standout. Our conviction was actually deepened during what was perhaps the most challenging time in the company’s existence. A notable project that launched on Magic Eden was discovered to be a “rug pull.” Over subsequent days, the Magic Eden team immersed and listened closely to its community, the founders spending hours in Twitter Spaces hearing ideas on how to strengthen the platform to protect security. Beyond offering refunds, the Magic Eden team “de-rugged” the project, launching Balloonsville 2.0 to revive the project under committed owners. The result was a safer launchpad experience with better verification controls in place, and strengthened trust from the community. Lemons to lemonade. Magic Eden continues to experiment with ways to make the platform progressively more community-owned, like MagicDAO.

Beyond the velocity point, Magic Eden is in a structurally durable position for where the NFT market is heading. Whereas most NFT volume today occurs via secondary marketplaces, Magic Eden operates across the spectrum from primary issuance to embedded transactions. On the former, Magic Eden works closely with creators on its Launchpad to help projects mint, market, and successfully execute launches. On the latter, Magic Eden takes an API-driven approach to help projects manage and host their own embedded marketplaces. Similar to the progression we’ve seen in ecommerce, where brands operate in an omnichannel world where they sell through their own direct-to-consumer site in addition to third-party retailers, Magic Eden’s infrastructure supports creators across their mix of channels.

The team is also “skating to where the puck is going.” We believe NFT technology will see many applications in coming years — from loyalty/membership programs and wallet-aware promotions for brands, to ticketing and royalties for artists, to virtual land ownership, and gaming. After setting its eyes on gaming, the Magic Eden team quickly launched 50+ games and captured 90%+ of Solana gaming NFT volume. Magic Eden envisions a future where NFTs are transferable and interoperable across games, ultimately yielding better liquidity for players and more accessible economic infrastructure for game developers.

If the past 9 months are any evidence of how much progress on a product and community can be made in a short timeframe, we can’t wait to see what the Magic Eden team accomplishes as it further accelerates its pace of building and experimentation, through all market conditions. This team has braved previous crypto winters at dYdX and elsewhere, and is thoughtfully building its team through this one — reach out about these roles if you’re looking to build the future of on-chain commerce, gaming, and community.

Jack and Zedd recently joined Greylock general partner Mike Duboe on the Greymatter podcast to discuss the Magic Eden’s mission to be the destination for discovering, collecting, and trading NFTs. You can listen to the podcast at the link, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also read a transcript of this episode here.

Scenery Lands 14.6M Series A to Build the “Figma for Video Editing”

Founded by a duo building their 3rd company in the video space, Scenery lets teams collaborate in real-time to storyboard & ideate concepts, then upload and manage source media — all in one platform. More on how Greylock led their Series A. (Business Insider, Greylock Blog)

Business Insider: Greylock’s Mike Duboe shares the top Solana blockchain projects on his radar

Insider spoke with Mike Duboe, a VC at Greylock, about his picks for top projects on Solana. Solana is becoming a popular alternative to Ethereum because of its lower costs and faster speeds. (Insider)

Check out our jobs page for all the available roles.

Our talent team is always looking to connect with engineers, product managers, and designers who are thinking about exploring early stage start-up as a next move in their career.

CXOs: Meet the most promising new startups. Reach out at cxo@greylock.com to schedule an executive briefing.

Are you a CXO looking to connect with startups that can help you address your company’s biggest tech needs? Greylock hosts CXOs for highly curated briefings and make targeted introductions based on your company’s priorities — with the goal of arming you with vital insights to help your organization address its current and future challenges. Greylock portfolio companies benefit from your product feedback, advice on product-market fit, and opportunities to co-develop in support of your organization’s technology needs.