Community contributors accuse Magic Eden of changing rewards and shutting down products after locking up funds
Former Magic Eden community data analysis contributor and founder of Magic Lab, Ben Gruenbaum, posted on X, accusing the NFT market Magic Eden of changing rewards, governance, products, and strategic direction after users locked up $ME for the long term. He stated that $ME has a fixed supply of 1 billion, of which 225 million are reserved for active user rewards over four years and are unlocked linearly, with the longest lock-up period being four years and no early withdrawal allowed. After distributing 10 million $ME in Season 1, an additional 2.3 million was added due to issues, and the rewards for Season 2 increased from 8 million to 10 million.The community fund was launched with 5 million $ME. The proposal supported by Magic Lab requested 295,000 $ME (approximately $177,000 at $0.60), but the budget shrank due to price declines. Users continued to lock up during the shutdown of the Bitcoin and EVM markets, as well as the Runes infrastructure and wallet, with rewards shifting to USDC. Magic Eden promised $75 million to Dicey, and some top stakers reported issues receiving USDC and have filed lawsuits. Gruenbaum stated that this is not a story about the token's decline, but rather about changes in ecosystem factors after users made long-term commitments.