Solana non-fungible token (NFT) mainstay Magic Eden is moving to an optional royalty model, announced by the marketplace in a Friday night Twitter thread.
??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
The company says it will also be waiving its 2% platform fee, effective later Friday.
The move follows a controversial trend set by other popular NFT marketplaces like X2Y2, which have opted to make royalty payments optional in a bid to attract more users — to the chagrin of most creators.
“We hope that this decision is not permanent,” Magic Eden said in the announcement.
Magic Eden’s thread sparked immediate outrage on NFT Twitter. The company hosted a Twitter Spaces 30 minutes after the announcement to field questions from its users.
“It’s also very sad, it’s also very tragic. We did not want to be in this position, but the market has already spoken in regards to optional market royalties,” a Magic Eden representative said. “It was effectively a race to the bottom.”
The company also said it’s putting $1 million towards a fund to create better royalty enforcement tools, and hopes to experiment with “new models outside of royalties” in the future. A representative from Magic Eden said its hand was forced by 60% of NFT traders currently on royalty-optional platforms.
Magic Eden raised $130 million at a $1.3 billion valuation in June.
This is an ongoing story and will be updated.
