Magic Eden has finally issued tokens, will it be a big deal?

Author: Cookie, BlockBeats

Just last night, the NFT marketplace Magic Eden officially announced its Token $ME.

There is no doubt that $ME will be the most anticipated and rewarding airdrop for NFT players in the near future. So, what data can help us initially gauge the value of the "Magic Eden Diamonds" we hold? In today's NFT market, which is already extremely weak, what makes us still have expectations for Magic Eden?

When will the airdrop arrive?

Magic Eden's official Twitter account tweeted in May, "The token claim product in the wallet will arrive by the end of Q3." This aligns with the announcement of $ME in the screenshot above, indicating that $ME will be claimable in the Magic Eden wallet.

If we look back at Magic Eden's official tweets, the platform officially launched on September 18, 2021 (there was earlier testing). So, could the $ME airdrop happen on September 18 of this year, which is also Magic Eden's third anniversary?

Price prediction?

In June of this year, Magic Eden announced that users could burn their NFT series "Magic Tickets" to redeem "Diamonds."

Currently, this "Diamond" redemption activity has ended. Over the course of a month, the floor price of Magic Tickets has stabilized around 0.4 SOL, with the lowest tier Magic Tickets redeemable for 500 Diamonds each. If we roughly estimate the price of $SOL during that month to be $140, the cost per "Diamond" would be $0.112.

However, after that, the "Diamond" farming activity has not stopped but has continued, so the price of $0.112 is clearly no longer a valid reference for us now. I choose to cite the analysis from @crypto_laodong—currently, the cost of Diamonds is between $0.013 and $0.023.

Since there are currently no details on the airdrop or the tokenomics disclosed, it is difficult for us to predict the price of the upcoming airdrop. However, based on my observations in the foreign OTC market, it seems that there is not much interest among foreigners in trading Magic Eden "Diamonds" off-market. Some sell orders only appeared a week ago, with asking prices around $0.04 - $0.05 per "Diamond."

Will it be a "big hit"?

Considering the current bleak NFT market, it is hard to say that Magic Eden will be a "big hit." The best reference we have is naturally Blur + Blast, whose FDV combined is less than $2 billion. The reason for comparing Magic Eden with Blur is that Magic Eden has launched its own wallet, "Magic Eden Wallet," and both its official statements and actions indicate a desire to create a comprehensive application ecosystem, so it is appropriate to include Blast's value as well.

Furthermore, Magic Eden is currently the No. 1 NFT marketplace, and logically its FDV should be higher than that of Blur + Blast. However, with the predicted token issuance time approaching, there is likely less than a month left. In such a short time, I do not believe there will be any major news in the NFT market to ignite enthusiasm, so even if it is higher than Blur + Blast, it may not be significantly so.

However, Magic Eden certainly has its advantages. Firstly, Magic Eden is currently the most active and profitable NFT marketplace. In the past 30 days, the number of active users on Magic Eden was only 2,000 less than that on OpenSea.

Looking at the active user distribution across chains, Magic Eden occupies the "most active now" Solana and the "most promising future" Bitcoin.

In the past month, the number of active NFT players on Solana has been the highest. Although Polygon looks impressive, it has a lot of "wash trading." To put it simply—there may never have been a Polygon NFT project that left a lasting impression on you, and it has been a long time since a new ETH NFT project gained widespread attention. Former NFT players are currently mainly focused on new projects on Solana and Bitcoin.

In the past 30 days, Magic Eden's revenue was also the highest, reaching $1.8 million, far ahead of OpenSea and Tensor.

Although Magic Eden has faced challenges from Tensor in its "home" Solana, the two are basically on par, and Magic Eden's user base has formed a "barbell structure" of Solana + Bitcoin. In the Bitcoin ecosystem, Magic Eden currently holds the top position in rune trading. Therefore, if runes experience a surge in popularity and Magic Eden's rune swap feature goes live, they are expected to gain even more in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

But will this raise the market for $ME at the time of issuance, especially when the rune and Ordinals ecosystem has not yet truly flourished? I am not very optimistic.

Conclusion

In any case, the airdrop from Magic Eden is undoubtedly exciting for NFT players, as it feels like a long-awaited blessing. Moreover, recalling the high "account opening fees" paid to OpenSea, there is even more reason to look forward to and support the heartfelt benefits that Magic Eden offers during this bear market.

I just hope that this "hit" can be bigger, and even bigger…