Magic Eden passed Blur as leading NFT marketplace in March: CoinGecko

In March, Magic Eden, an online marketplace specializing in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Solana blockchain, achieved its highest monthly sales volume. This figure exceeded that of the current industry frontrunner, Blur.

The NFT trading volume on CoinGecko surged by 194.4% in March, reaching a total of $756.5 million. In contrast, Blur experienced only a slight uptick to $530.4 million during the same period, as reported in CoinGecko’s Q1 2024 report, which was released on April 17.

According to CoinGecko’s analysis, Magic Eden’s growth in popularity can be attributed in part to the launch of its Diamond reward program and its ongoing collaboration with Yuga Labs. This development came as Yuga Labs was ending relationships with NFT marketplaces that didn’t prioritize creator royalties.

It marked the sixth consecutive month that Magic Eden increased its trading volume.

In December 2023, OKX’s NFT marketplace dethroned Blur as the top NFT marketplace by trading volume for the first time in over ten consecutive months. This shift occurred due to the surge in popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals, which OKX effectively capitalized on. Prior to this, Blur had been the frontrunner since surpassing OpenSea in trading volumes back in February 2023.

Despite seeing significant competition from Magic Eden and Uniswap in Bitcoin NFT trading, OKX has experienced a substantial decrease in volume, leading to a 73.3% drop since December, now standing at approximately $180 million.

In spite of this, OKX achieved the third largest NFT trading volume during Q1 2024. Solana’s Tensor and OpenSea followed closely behind in fifth place.

During the first quarter of 2024, the total volume of NFT trades on the top 10 marketplaces reached an astounding $4.7 billion – marking a significant jump of 51.6% compared to the previous quarter (Q4 2023).

In contrast to their previous highs, the prices for popular NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Clubs and CryptoPunks have dropped significantly. Specifically, BAYC’s floor price has decreased by over 91%, and CryptoPunks’ floor price has fallen more than 64% since their respective peaks in May 2022 and October 2021.

A significant point of contention between NFT marketplaces and studio creators recently is the implementation of royalty fees for the sale of digital works.

Last August, OpenSea, which was previously the most popular NFT marketplace, drew controversy by retiring its on-chain royalty collection feature. Devin Finzer, OpenSea’s CEO, stated that the tool didn’t perform as well as anticipated and accused competitors like Blur, Dew, and LooksRare of finding ways around it. Specifically, these platforms integrated Seaport Protocol to bypass OpenSea’s restrictions and thus evade creators’ fees.

OpenSea changed its stance somewhat earlier this month, allowing for the use of the ERC-721C programmable earnings standard.

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2024-04-18 02:54