Magic Eden unveils ME token, eyeing expansion beyond NFT sector

The NFT marketplace is also planning a pivot to fungible token trading

August 22, 2024 01:21 pm

Magic Eden and Adobe Stock modified by Blockworks

ME Foundation, the entity behind the NFT marketplace Magic Eden, announced the launch of its token ME on Thursday.

Magic Eden joins a slew of other NFT marketplaces like Blur, LooksRare, X2Y2, Tensor and Sudoswap in launching a token. OpenSea is now the last major holdout in that group.

ME will be claimable via the Magic Eden wallet on mobile and desktop, while details around its supply and distribution will be announced at a later date. US users will not be able to claim ME.

Newsletter

Subscribe to The Breakdown

Magic Eden launched as a NFT trading platform for Solana in 2021, later expanding to Polygon and Base.

The marketplace saw a significant jump in activity after it integrated Bitcoin NFTs during the Ordinals and Runes hype earlier this year. Since then, Magic Eden’s processed about 80% of all Bitcoin NFT secondary trading volume in the last year, according to NFT Pulse.

Across all chains in the same time period, Magic Eden processed about $2.9 billion (24%) of NFT trading volumes in total.

Amid a depressed NFT market, Magic Eden seems to be pursuing a mobile-centric strategy to pivot beyond NFT trading to enable cross-chain trading of fungible crypto tokens like bitcoin and ether.

Magic Eden’s token announcement comes off the back of its mobile app launch for the marketplace’s native wallet Wednesday, which has at least 250,000 monthly active users.

The ME token aims to attract users from outside the Magic Eden ecosystem to adopt its open source protocols and token, while also to “incentivize users to trade any asset on the biggest chains at any time,” the official press release said.

The total NFT market cap today sits around $42 billion, still far below its all-time high of $617 billion in May 2022, according to Coinmarketcap.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.

Tags

Newsletter

The Breakdown

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Digital Asset Summit 2026

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

buy tickets learn more

recent research

Research

Kinetiq Protocol: From LST Infrastructure to HIP-3 Deployer

Kinetiq has established itself as Hyperliquid's dominant liquid staking protocol, holding 82.5% of LST market share with $610M in TVL. The protocol is now expanding beyond its kHYPE staking core into higher take-rate verticals: iHYPE for institutional custody rails, Launch for HIP-3 capital formation, and Markets for builder-deployed perpetuals. We view Markets, launching Jan. 12, as the highest-potential product line given its mechanically scalable, activity-linked unit economics. Near-term revenue remains anchored by kHYPE's KIP-2 fee schedule (~$1.6M annualized), while Markets provides embedded optionality if HIP-3 economics normalize post-Growth Mode. KNTQ's setup is relatively clean: zero insider unlocks until November 2026, 6.2% buyback yield from staking revenue, and cleared airdrop overhang. Risks center on unproven Markets execution, declining kHYPE TVL despite ongoing incentives, and competition from Hyperliquid's native initiatives.

by Shaunda Devens