Authored by: Weilin, PANews
Since the launch of Runes on April 23rd, Magic Eden has quickly established a leading position in the Runes trading market. According to GeniiData’s panel, as of 12:00 on June 12th, Magic Eden’s market trading volume share ranks first, far ahead of the second-place market OKX and the third-place market UniSat.
With just two months under its belt, Magic Eden, a cross-chain NFT platform based on Solana, has received positive reviews from the Runes community users for its “good user experience” and “fast infrastructure improvement”. Behind its marketing and development strategies lies the company’s strategic shift towards the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing Magic Eden to seize a rare opportunity in the market competition.
By focusing on user experience, Magic Eden has successfully dominated the Runes market. On June 10th, early Bitcoin ecosystem influencer xiyu mentioned, “You can now see k-line charts on Magic Eden’s Runes trading interface… priced in sat, you can see the price trend of $dog from 4.24 onwards, getting closer to the experience of a cex.” This feedback epitomizes Magic Eden’s continuous advancement in the Runes trading market.
According to GeniiData, as of June 12th, Magic Eden’s trading volume reached $4.19 million, while OKX stood at $2.72 million, and UniSat at $657,000. Magic Eden firmly holds the top position, accounting for approximately 54% of the market trading share.
Not only in the Runes ecosystem, but Magic Eden also frequently tops the charts in all-chain trading platforms. According to data compiled by Tiexo as of 12:00 on June 12th, Magic Eden’s market share of 7-day and monthly trading volumes are 37.56% ($69.6 million) and 34.34% ($32.8 billion), respectively. This places Magic Eden ahead of the Ethereum-based trading market Blur, with OpenSea following behind.
Magic Eden’s market leadership is largely attributed to its rapid embrace of the Bitcoin ecosystem, showcasing outstanding performance in the Bitcoin ecosystem and Runes trading.
As early as March last year, Magic Eden launched its Runes market. With the rising popularity of Bitcoin and Runes, in March this year, Runes accounted for 84% of Magic Eden’s 24-hour trading volume, while Solana NFT trading volume only accounted for 13%.
Currently, according to Dune’s data, since November last year, Bitcoin ecosystem trading volume on Magic Eden has gradually increased. As of June 1st, Bitcoin accounted for 27.8% of its trading volume, Ethereum 23.8%, Solana 48.1%, and Polygon 0.3%. On April 1st, Bitcoin’s trading volume share even reached 50.3%.
Magic Eden’s cross-chain trading volume. Blue represents Ethereum, orange represents Bitcoin, green represents Solana, and purple represents Polygon.
In terms of user experience, Magic Eden stands out compared to its competitors. According to user feedback, although OKX Wallet has more domestic users, it does not support order scanning and can only interact with its own OKX Web Wallet. UniSat’s user feedback is also not very ideal, as on June 11th, a Rune index bug occurred, affecting some users’ interaction experience despite the team’s prompt fix. In contrast, Magic Eden offers a smoother user experience, with a more global user base, a simple interface, support for multiple order scanning, and low transaction fees.
On June 4th, Magic Eden updated its BTC ecosystem trading platform. Users summarized: 1. Offers function is now available, allowing users to place buy and sell orders at desired prices. 2. Correspondingly, users can directly buy or sell their NFTs. 3. The trend analysis chart has reached a high standard, with adjustable periods. 4. The scanning function is powerful, but not very convenient to use. 5. A single page can display a considerable amount of images. One user expressed, “Its strength has exceeded imagination, everyone is witnessing its development step by step.”
Looking back at the early development of the BTC Runes ecosystem, the UniSat platform once seized the flow of new Rune minting and trading. However, it seems to have missed out on a good layout. As early as February this year, some users analyzed that UniSat faced multiple challenges, including strategic decision-making confusion and technical difficulties hindering the implementation of desired functionalities. This led to almost no substantial progress in empowering the ecosystem in seven to eight months, and the empowerment of $sats became more of an advertising slogan that had been overused.
In this context, from May to June, UniSat has airdropped “Pizza” Runes to eligible users in an attempt to ignite a new wave of Rune popularity, making the market competition fierce.
Magic Eden leans towards the Bitcoin ecosystem. From Magic Eden’s marketing strategy perspective, the BTC ecosystem has become one of the company’s main focuses, while its competitors Blur and OpenSea have failed to catch up with this trend.
Magic Eden’s official YouTube channel has recently released four videos related to Runes or symbols, further showcasing its ambition to strengthen its influence in the Bitcoin community.
Magic Eden’s Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Z Yin recently told Decrypt, “We believe that Runes will bring new vitality to the Bitcoin ecosystem, ushering in a wave of new developers and new asset types that were previously only possible on another layer of the chain; we have a long-term belief in native Bitcoin activities… For us, adding Runes to the existing Ordinals market is a natural choice.”
Furthermore, in incentive programs, Magic Eden is breaking through its existing limits. Earlier this year, Magic Eden announced a partnership with the new Non-Fungible DAO to open-source its minting and trading protocols. This move is part of Magic Eden’s broader strategy to decentralize its platform and empower the NFT community. In addition to the open-source protocol, Magic Eden plans to introduce an encrypted token called “NFT” to reward NFT traders. Non-Fungible DAO will distribute NFT tokens to users actively participating in the Magic Eden ecosystem, including those using the market and minting protocols on different blockchains.
In addition to launching NFT tokens, Magic Eden will expand its existing diamond reward program to all four supported blockchains: Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Polygon. The diamond program rewards users for completing tasks and participating in the Magic Eden market. Currently, the community is highly anticipating Magic Eden’s diamond airdrop.
Although Magic Eden has achieved a phase of success in the Runes ecosystem, on June 10th, the Rune project RARE•WIZARD•ORB sparked some community controversy due to a minting fee of 0.00069 BTC, leading to some users criticizing the role played by Magic Eden, resulting in some negative impact.
Overall, through its focus on the Bitcoin ecosystem and continuous optimization of user experience, Magic Eden has secured a dominant position in the Runes market, becoming the main battleground. Its future actions are worth further observation.
