Magic Eden, the Solana-based nonfungible token (NFT) platform, has reached a significant milestone in March. According to CoinGecko's Q1 report, Magic Eden recorded its highest trading volume in March, surpassing the fast-growing firm Blur. The report showed that Magic Eden experienced a 194% increase, reaching a trading volume of $765 million.

Magic Eden Achieves Remarkable Growth

In the report, CoinGecko noted that Blur also had a successful month, with a trading volume of approximately $530 million. The report mentioned that Blur's success was partly due to its Diamond reward program and its partnership with Yuga Labs. The two strengthened their partnership around the time when the platform announced it was ending its relationship with NFT platforms that did not enforce creator royalties.

March marked the sixth consecutive month that Magic Eden outperformed other marketplaces in trading volume. Before March, Blur had been the undisputed leader in NFT marketplace trading volume for several months. The last time a marketplace outperformed Blur was in December, when the OKX NFT marketplace saw a surge due to the rise of Bitcoin Ordinals.

Creator Royalties and Controversies

OKX experienced a 73% decline in its trading volume due to losing a significant portion of its Bitcoin trading volume to Magic Eden and another marketplace since December. Despite its market volume decreasing, OKX came in third place in trading volume, with Tensor and Opensea completing the top five. The top 10 NFT marketplaces registered a cumulative trading volume of $4.7 billion, representing a 51% increase in Q1 compared to the last quarter.

Although trading volume has increased, the price of major NFTs has significantly decreased. High-flying projects Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks saw a drop of 91% and 64%, respectively, in their prices. Both NFTs reached their peak price in May 2022 and October 2021. NFT marketplaces and studios have been in conflict over the enforcement of creator royalties.

OpenSea recently announced that it had abandoned its royalty enforcement tool. According to its CEO, Devin Finzer, the tool was not successful as its competitors were avoiding it by using the Seaport protocol to bypass its blacklist, thereby removing creator royalties. However, the company recently reversed its position when it announced its support for the ERC-712C programmable earning standard.