Few startups in the crypto world boast the market dominance that OpenSea currently enjoys, but many venture-backed startups are looking to rise above their lead.
Welcome back to Chain Reaction, where we unpack and explain the latest in crypto news, drama and trends, breaking things down into chunks for those curious about electronic money.
For this Tuesday’s episode, we spoke with Jack Lu, Co-Founder and CEO of the fast-growing NFT marketplace Magic Eden. This venture capital-backed startup was founded last year and has reached unicorn status – valued at $1.6 billion.
The startup has become the default way for NFT traders in the Solana ecosystem to trade, but as the market has evolved, their team has refocused their ambitions to take on OpenSea at home – Ethereum network, which they recently started rolling out early support for.
The startup is looking to differentiate itself in the broader NFT market space, moving away from being a hub for online art and focusing more on verticals like gaming.
“We’re not really a universal marketplace that plays in every category, we don’t play by unique art, we don’t create usernames or domains,” Lu told us, noting that Magic Eden primarily focuses on “collections” that include things like avatars and profile pictures, as well as game-related NFTs.
The gaming section of Magic Eden’s focus took up most of the conversation as Anita and Lucas sought to capture the tempo of crypto gaming in late summer 2022.
“There’s no such thing as ‘web3 gamers’, people who like to play games aren’t looking to play web3 games, they just want to play a game,” said Lu. pure game content developer well versed in game content development and game loops themselves will enter this space and use web3 as a tool.. to accomplish a number of goals player or product goals within the game itself.”
You can listen to the full episode to hear Lu’s more extensive thoughts on the NFT gaming market as well as his thoughts on the potential bottom-to-bottom race in NFT trading fees.
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