Magic Eden tops OpenSea’s Daily Trading Volume, as Solana NFTs Heat up

The Solana non-fungible token (NFT) market is beginning to find its stride, with daily transactions on the ecosystem’s leading marketplace, Magic Eden, now topping OpenSea, it’s Ethereum blockchain counterpart.

Weekly data from DappRadar, Magic Eden has seen roughly 275,000 daily transactions (which includes purchases, bids and listings) compared with OpenSea’s 50,000, according to weekly data from DappRadar.

Magic Eden, when reached by CoinDesk provided data showing that 330,000 real sales (not just bids like the DappRadar data data) had taken place in the past week. This works out to approximately 47,000 daily transactions.

OpenSea is still the preferred platform for trading NFTs. DappRadar reports that Magic Eden has hosted 24,000 traders over the past 24 hours and OpenSea 41,000.

Despite the fact that Magic Eden users are transacting at higher rates than OpenSea, there has been a decrease in total sales volume despite the fact that there have been more transactions.

In terms of capital being spent, OpenSea remains a good distance ahead, seeing $35 million of sales volume compared to Magic Eden’s $10 million. The average price of an NFT traded on OpenSea was also over $700, well above Magic Eden’s average price of $123.

Magic Eden emerges

Network fees on different blockchains are likely to be a factor in the differences in how NFT traders interact with each platform. The gas fees for buying an Ethereum-based NFT on OpenSea cost around $30. Solana fees are less than one cent.

Usage stats over a 30-day period tell a similar story, though OpenSea’s total volume of traders is down 1% from the previous month while Magic Eden’s has increased 316%.

These on-chain data may also be misleading. For example, transactions and sales volume can have different definitions or manipulation.

Overall, the NFT market is shifting away from Ethereum-dominated status. There are more traders on alt-chain marketplaces, and there are more transactions per user.

OpenSea offers Solana NFT trades of its own. The integration was announced in April. But usage on the platform has so far lagged behind the hype, with Solana NFT sales on OpenSea being around 9% of Magic Eden’s since launch, according to data from Magic Eden.