Magic Eden appears to problem OpenSea’s NFT dominance – Thealike

Few startups within the crypto world boast the market dominance that OpenSea at present enjoys, however quite a few venture-backed startups need to chip away at their lead.

Welcome again to Chain Reaction, the place we unpack and clarify the most recent in crypto news, drama and tendencies, breaking issues down block by block for the crypto curious.

For our Tuesday episode this week, we talked to Jack Lu, the co-founder and CEO of fast-rising NFT market Magic Eden. The venture-backed startup was based final yr and has already reached unicorn standing — elevating at a $1.6 billion valuation.

The startup has turn out to be the default means for NFT merchants within the Solana ecosystem to transact, however as {the marketplace} has grown, its crew has refocused its ambitions to tackle OpenSea on its residence turf — the Ethereum community, which they’ve just lately begun rolling out early assist for.

The startup is seeking to differentiate itself contained in the broader NFT market area, shying away from being a hub for on-line artwork, and leaning extra into verticals like gaming.

“We’re not really a generalized marketplace that plays in every category, we don’t play in one-of-one fine art, we don’t do usernames or domain names,” Lu tells us, noting that Magic Eden largely focuses on “collectibles” which embrace issues like avatars and profile images, in addition to NFTs associated to gaming.

It was the gaming a part of Magic Eden’s focus that took up the majority of the dialog as Anita and Lucas regarded to get a finger on the heartbeat of crypto gaming in late summer time 2022.

“There is no such thing as ‘web3 gamers,’ people who like playing games do not go looking to play a web3 game, they just want to play a game,” Lu says” “I think we’re going to see a shift where it’s pure game content developers who are masterful at developing game content and game loops themselves that are going to come into this space and are more into using web3 as an instrument.. to realize some player goal or product goal within the game itself.”

You can take heed to the total episode to listen to Lu’s extra expansive ideas on the NFT gaming market in addition to his ideas on a possible race-to-the-bottom in NFT transaction charges.

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