coinculture.com
The prominent Solana non-fungible token (NFT) Magic Eden is transitioning to an optional royalty model, as announced in a Friday evening Twitter thread by the marketplace. The company will waive its 2% platform fee, effective Friday evening.
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🧵After some difficult reflection and discussions with many creators, we’ve decided to move to optional royalties on @MagicEden.
Effective later today, we will also begin running a promotion to waive our platform fees.
— Magic Eden 🪄 (@MagicEden) October 15, 2022
To attract more users, other popular NFT marketplaces, such as X2Y2, have opted to make royalty payments optional, much to the chagrin of the majority of creators.
In an announcement, Magic Eden stated, “We hope that this decision is not permanent.”
On NFT Twitter, Magic Eden’s thread sparked immediate outrage. Thirty minutes after the announcement, the company hosted a Twitter Space to field questions from its users.
A representative from Magic Eden stated that it was also tragic and sad. The firm did not want to be in this position, but the market had already spoken regarding optional market royalties. Effectively, it was a race to the bottom.
In addition, the company was contributing $1 million to a fund to develop better royalty enforcement tools, and it plans to experiment with new models outside of royalties. 60% of NFT traders are currently using royalty-free platforms, according to a representative from Magic Eden.
In June, Magic Eden raised $130 million at a valuation of $1.3 billion.