How the NFT market has changed: Magic Eden leads, BAYC lays off employees & more

If a year ago someone told you that Magic Eden would overtake OpenSea and Yuga Labs would have to lay off staff to stay afloat, you probably wouldn’t have believed it. These news stories remind us how unexpectedly things can change in the NFT market.

Magic Eden is now the no.1 NFT marketplace by sales

For years, OpenSea ruled unchallenged as the biggest NFT marketplace out there. Then, in 2023, newcomer Blur suddenly overtook it thanks to its focus on professional NFT traders, fast performance, and minimalist interface. However, in March 2024, the leader changed again: Magic Eden registered $756 million in monthly sales, which is almost 50% more than Blur’s $530 million.

Magic Eden started out as a Solana marketplace, but it made a winning move by adding Bitcoin Ordinals — while OpenSea never did. In March, Ordinals sales accounted for 84% of the total volume on Magic Eden, with Solana NFTs accounted for only 13%.

Magic Eden doesn’t show any signs of stopping, either. In April 2024, it added support for the Base L2 blockchain and — even more importantly — launched a platform for Bitcoin Runes. This is a new fungible token protocol on Bitcoin, but it uses a very similar technology to Ordinals. If Runes acquire anything like the popularity of BRC-20, Magic Eden’s volume can explode further.

Yuga Labs has to let go of employees

Yuga Labs used to be the symbol of success in the NFT world, with a host of powerful brands (including Crypto Punks), the Otherside metaverse, and big plans for NFT games. Yet, as the floor price of BAYC has fallen 90% from the all-time high, Yuga Labs has to find ways to save money.

On April 29, it became known that the company would soon lay off some of its 150 employees. In a tweet, CEO Greg Solana admitted that Yuga has “lost its way” and needed to return to its “roots”, while adopting a more agile and leaner structure. Those team members who haven’t been fired yet but who feel like they won’t fit in the new environment are recommended to accept the severance package offered and leave. This follows the firing of around 120 employees a few months ago.

Yuga Labs also sold IP rights to two planned games: Legends of the Mara and HV-MTL. While the company presented the news as “exciting”, CEO Greg Solana also wrote that the goal was to “unshackle the BAYC” team and to have more focus. However, one can speculate if having to cut costs had something to do with it.

NodeMonkes and Bitcoin record the highest NFT sales

The times when Ethereum towered over other blockchains in terms of NFT sales are also gone. It still often ends up as the chain with the highest monthly volume, but competition is now tight — and between March 27 and April 27, Bitcoin secured over $456 million in NFT sales — roughly 40% more than Ethereum.

It’s also a sign of the changing times that an NFT collection on Bitcoin — NodeMonkes — has registered the highest day sales on April 25. Over $1.05 million worth of Monkes changed hands, which is a tad higher than the sales of BAYC on the same day. True, the all-time volume of NodeMonkes is still over 15 times lower than that of Bored Apes, but it’s clear that money is flowing out of Ethereum NFTs and into Ordinals. By the way, we have covered NodeMonkes in the blog article on the Ordinals NFT collections you must know about.

2024 could be a transformative year for NFTs, with new sources of utility, evolving token standards, and shifting market dynamics. Keep following our blog, and don’t miss the next NFT narrative!