The “points” meta has overtaken the crypto space lately, and NFT marketplaces in Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin are jumping on the bandwagon (and in some cases driving it) in an attempt to capture the hearts, minds, and wallets of traders everywhere .
Will points translate into token airdrops? Will the NFT market return to its former glory? And if so, which company is best positioned to win the NFT market wars? Here’s how things look so far:
Magic Eden is the newest NFT marketplace to try to lure users through points-like loyalty models that could pay off with a token drop or other rewards. The marketplace has recently been Diamond reward systemincluding one retroactive reduction in rewards for Solana traders dates from 2021.
Ethereum marketplace Blur pioneered the points model, and last year it was this time that the upstart platform dethroned longtime leader OpenSea by giving BLUR tokens worth hundreds of millions of dollars to its most loyal users. By the end of the year, Blur was given away $818 million in BLUR tokens after users collected points.
Tensorthe leading one Solana The NFT marketplace has used a similar points-based loyalty model and similarly overtook leader Magic Eden last year, but Tensor has yet to launch its crypto token. To be clear, Tensor has yet to officially announce a token airdrop tied to the points, though it has teased such sentiments in the past.
Magic Eden’s launch of its Diamonds system, starting on Solana but expanding to Bitcoin, PolygonAnd Ethereum soon – marked an apparent attempt to overtake Tensor. Likewise, we don’t yet know what Magic Eden’s point-like diamonds will actually be used for, although there is one separate NFT token drop runs parallel to the reward system.
Is Magic Eden’s pay shift paying off in terms of increasing its market share? Not really so far.
Magic Eden briefly saw a Solana wave that suggested he was making up ground on Tensor. On February 5, Declutter noted that market data from the analytics platform Tiexo pointed out that Magic Eden claimed a 41% share of Solana NFT volume over the previous 24-hour period, compared to 53% for Tensor. That was much closer than the past few weeks.
However, at the time of writing, Tensor has captured around 73% of the Solana NFT market share in the past 24 hours, compared to just 22% for Magic Eden, according to Tiexo. If we zoom out a bit, there has been no significant shift in recent weeks. In the last seven days, Tensor has a share of over 75% compared to 19% for Magic Eden; in the past month, Tensor claimed more than 73%, while Magic Eden was less than 22%.
Image: Tiexo
Expanding the data to platforms of several major NFT chains including Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polygon and BNB chain– reveals some other interesting details about how compensation models are further shaping the market wars.
Looking at the broader landscape, Blur controls the market by a wide margin and had a market share of around 42% last week. That’s entirely on the Ethereum mainnet, still the leading blockchain for NFTs, and Blur’s existing token and history of significant airdrops to users would seem to favor its continued dominance.
Tensor ranks second overall with a market share of around 14.5% among the followed networks, all on Solana, followed by Magic Eden with 14% – with most of that volume coming from Bitcoin Ordinals sales.
OpenSea, which has no points system and has long resisted calls to launch its own token, lands in fourth place with a share of about 12.4%, mainly on Ethereum and the scaling network Polygon. Bringing the back forward is OKX’s marketplace for Bitcoin ordinal numberswhich are similar to NFTs, with a market share of approximately 7.7%.
Tiexo’s 24-hour data shows some anomalies due to the smaller sample size, with Blur having an even larger share at 52.5% and Magic Eden in second place with just under 12% – but most of that volume is focused on Bitcoin, likely due to sales for the Bits gaming project. OpenSea, Tensor and OKX come last in that order.
Image: Tiexo
Magic Eden is preparing a significant push on Ethereum with the launch of a new marketplace for that chain. created in partnership of Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs. Set to debut on February 27, the market has also forged alliances with the teams behind major Ethereum projects such as Pudgy penguins and Azuki.
Will the launch of Magic Eden’s new Ethereum marketplace, with accompanying Diamonds rewards, help turn the tide and provide lasting momentum in the fight against rivals? We’ll see later this month, as it’s the next big shift on the horizon, even if the NFT world is always full of surprises.
Edited by Guillermo Jimenez
