Magic Eden Pulls Plug on Bitcoin and Ethereum Support, Doubles Down on Solana

Magic Eden co-founder and CEO Jack Lu announced Friday that the NFT marketplace and token trading platform are ending support for Ethereum-compatible and Bitcoin-based assets.

In less than two weeks, Magic Eden users will no longer be able to trade assets related to the networks on the Lu platform said on X. That includes assets minted on Ethereum scaling networks like Polygon and Base, as well as Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes meme coins.

Magic Eden’s self-custodial wallet will undergo similar changes, Lu said, with plans to stop supporting the assets in early April. He said the market will continue to support the people within it Solana‘s ecosystem, where the NFT marketplace debuted in 2021.

The move, which was first reported by Blockspace mediamarks a significant shift in Magic Eden’s approach to user adoption. The company had become earlier the largest NFT marketplace by trading volume by pioneering a multi-chain approach while cornering the once-popular market for Bitcoin-based Ordinals years ago.

Magic Eden signaled last year that it was building beyond the increasingly chilly digital collectibles market acquire Slingshot Finance, a mobile-first crypto trading application. At the time, efforts to break into the meme coin trading market were spread across multiple chains.

In January, Lu revealed Dicey, and said the crypto casino and sportsbook would position the company to benefit from a “speculation super cycle.” On Friday, Lu said the company continues to focus on “the tremendous opportunities in iGaming.”

As part of the shift, Lu said the company will no longer conduct NFT buybacks. Meanwhile, the company will look to refine how its ME token is used in products, Lu said.

Magic Eden’s ME token, which can be used to earn rewards and participate in the project’s governance, changed hands for about 12 cents on Friday, according to Coin gecko. The token’s value has fallen 97% from a peak of $5.63 after its debut in December 2024.

Since its debut, Magic Eden has raised a total of $140 million in funding Crunch base. That includes a $130 million Series B funding round in 2022, valuing the company at as much as $1.6 billion, and co-led by venture capital firms Greylock and Electric Capital.

Magic Eden was one of the early adopters of Ordinals and Runes, racing to back the assets akin to NFTs and meme coins on Bitcoin ahead of most top exchanges. The company continued to solidify its lead with Ordinals and Runes even as those markets cooled.

According to Dune, Magic Eden generated $576 million in digital collectibles trading volume last month dashboard. While that activity was mostly centered around NFTs on Solana, $121,000 in trading volume came from Bitcoin-based assets during the period.

It seems like some projects are ready to take up the mantle when it comes to Bitcoin-based assets. Taproots Wizards co-founder Udi Wertheimer said on X earlier this month that “a dedicated marketplace for the Ordinals-focused project will be coming soon.”