NFT Marketplace Magic Eden switches to an optional royalty model

The largest NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, stated on Friday that traders are no longer required to pay artist royalties. The decision to make royalties optional was made in light of the ongoing competition among various market strategies.

“After some difficult reflection and discussions with many creators, we’ve decided to move to optional royalties,” the platform tweeted. The platform added that it would not charge its platform fees during a promotional period to attract more traders. In one of his tweets, he also drew attention to serious implications for the ecosystem.

In the previous year, Magic Eden, the Solana non-fungible token (NFT) mainstay, held a market share of almost 90%. Within nine months of its introduction, Magic Eden had raised $130 million in Series B funding. A obligatory payment feature on the host platform has been easily exceeded, leaving the decision to the creators. The platform has chosen to conduct a hackathon very soon in order to create alternative monetization technologies that adhere to royalty-protecting norms.

However, X2Y2, one of the Ethereum NFT marketplaces, previously stated that they will leave the decision of whether or not to pay royalties to the market. The hackathon idea would enable Web3 developers to create NFT technology, making creator royalties enforceable on-chain.