Magic Eden’s Vision: On-Chain Trading, $ME Token, and the Next Airdrop | Zhuoxun Yin, Co-Founder
Zhouxun Yin, the Co-Founder of Magic Eden, joins The Defiant Podcast to discuss the evolution of one of the largest NFT marketplaces. In this episode, he shares the story behind Magic Eden’s founding, their decision to focus on Solana early on, and their multi-chain expansion strategy. Z dives into the challenges of navigating the bear market, enforcing royalties, and launching a token to unite their ecosystem. He also explores the future of NFTs, their integration with AI, and Magic Eden's ambitious shift toward becoming an all-encompassing on-chain trading platform.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:30 - Founding Magic Eden
03:40 - Surviving FTX and Solana’s Challenges
07:20 - Navigating the NFT Bear Market
12:00 - The Bitcoin Ordinals Bet
16:00 - Multi-Chain Expansion
24:30 - Launching the $ME Token
32:00 - Addressing Airdrop Challenges
46:50 - The Royalty Debate
54:10 - Long-Term Vision for NFTs
01:03:00 - On-Chain Trading and Future Goals
01:10:35 - Closing Thoughts
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The Polygon NFT Ecosystem with Frank (DeGods), Zhuoxun Yin (Magic Eden), & Stani Kulechov (Lens)
In today’s episode, we’re talking to Frank DeGods, from the DeGods project, an NFT project that’s recently migrated to Polygon. We also brought on Zhuoxun Yin, Co-Founder and COO of Magic Eden, an NFT marketplace also migrating to Polygon. And last, but certainly not least, we’re also joined by Stani Kulechov, Founder and CEO of the Aave companies, which is bootstrapping Lens, a social media ecosystem on top of Polygon.
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------ Topics Covered
0:00 Intro 7:02 Why Polygon? 13:45 Solana vs. Polygon 25:30 NFT Trajectories 35:00 Lens on Other Chains? 41:09 Supernets 43:20 The Lens & Polygon Focal Point 48:10 Ecosystem Metrics 1:00:00 Polygon #3 Community? 1:05:30 Lens, Content, & Metrics 1:12:25 Closing & Disclaimers
------ Resources:
Frank https://twitter.com/frankdegods
Zhuoxun Yin https://twitter.com/ZhuoxunYin
Stani https://twitter.com/StaniKulechov
----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
The Chopping Block: Two on Two Debate: NFT Royalty Throwdown! - Ep. 409
Welcome to The Chopping Block! Host Haseeb Qureshi partnered with Zhuoxun Yin, cofounder of Magic Eden, to debate Unchained host Laura Shin and Li Jin, cofounder at Variant Fund, on the topic of NFT Royalties.
Show highlights:
What NFT royalties are
Why Laura believes zero NFT royalties is a bad business decision prioritizing short-term needs over long-term ones and that it will turn creators off from the industry
How charging royalties is not sustainable, according to Haseeb
Why royalties are the best mechanism to align incentives between creators and holders, according to Li
The technical limitations of NFT royalties on a general-purpose blockchain like Ethereum or Solana
How to align incentives between NFT creators and holders
Why the prices of NFTs would go up if royalties are not enforced
Whether the NFT market will change in the future
Whether it is possible to create a standard that enforces royalties in a smart contract
The creators’ reaction to Magic Eden moving to optional royalties
The possibility of a bifurcation of the NFT market
Hosts
Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly
Guests
Laura Shin, author, and host of Unchained
Zhuoxun Yin, cofounder of Magic Eden
Li Jin, cofounder of Variant
Episode Links
Magic Eden Optional Royalties - Unchained Coverage
Post-debate poll
Tool Metashield
The standards innovation paradox by Li Jin
X2y2 flexible royalties
Previous episodes of The Chopping Block debating NFT Royalties
The Chopping Block - Ep. 405
The Chopping Block - Ep. 386
Article: Why NFT Creators and Collectors Can’t Stop Talking About Artist Royalties
Article: NFT Royalties: Why artists love them, and traders don’t
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Magic Eden's Zedd talks expansion plans after the NFT marketplace raises $130 million
Magic Eden, Solana’s largest NFT marketplace, is eyeing an ambitious growth plan after raising a $130 million funding round co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital.
While the broader crypto market struggles to find its footing, Magic Eden is coming off its best month ever, with just over 5 million SOL in volume transacted during May.
In this episode of The Scoop, Magic Eden co-founder and COO Zhuoxun 'Zedd' Yin, talks through the project’s funding efforts and unpacks some of the reasons why he believes Magic Eden has room to grow into more than just an NFT marketplace.
As Zedd explains during the interview, both Magic Eden’s founders and its investors share a broad time horizon for the future:
“I think despite the ridiculous and amazing traction that I think we've had in the first nine months, it's still very early days for us and we have a lot more we want to build — and I think hopefully that plan and that outlook resonated with a lot of investors. And for us, we were lucky to be able to bring on the partners that we were really excited about.”
Instead of limiting itself to running a marketplace, Magic Eden hopes to establish itself as a hub for all NFT-related activity.
According to Zedd:
“We would love to be the place where there's actually many layers on top of the marketplace — so not only is this the place where you perform the execution of the transaction, but really all of the discovery, all of the community based interaction, all the fun social elements that come with NFTs is also happened on Magic Eden.”
Magic Eden also plans to branch out beyond the Solana blockchain
"As, you know... very intentional decision to start on Solana. But I really do think that if developers and users are going to be in other ecosystems, it's almost like if you're a traditional company starting in Australia. But then there's a lot of users in New Zealand or like whatever, like Singapore. You want to be there too. Right?"
Episode 56 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded in-person with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Magic Eden Co-Founder & COO, Zedd.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.
About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.
About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.