Where were you fifteen years ago? Somewhere in the distance in 2008, a mysterious figure by the name of Satoshi Nakomoto changed the world by creating Bitcoin. Bitcoin, the grandfather of all blockchains, created the foundations of a public decentralized protocol that could facilitate transactions. Through a grand butterfly effect and series of events, his actions led to the monumental growth of blockchains overall and ultimately this led to the very possibility of Magic Eden.
With great respect to the origins of web3, we are thrilled to announce the launch of our latest supported chain on Magic Eden - Bitcoin. As the most original, decentralized, and biggest blockchain in the world, Bitcoin represents an opportunity to build a unique marketplace where folks can trade true, immutable collectibles, something that was inconceivable until the release of Ordinal Theory.
Just as we have expanded into other chains, we now aim to bring our expertise in building marketplaces to the nascent, yet flourishing Ordinals ecosystem. By doing so, we're honoring the culture of Bitcoin by providing the first audited marketplace and our winning user experience to collectible lovers.
Why Bitcoin?
At Magic Eden, innovation is an integral part of the foundation we’re built upon. As a result, we paid close attention to the release of Ordinal Theory and the lightning pace of adoption that soon followed.
We are starting on this journey by creating a Bitcoin marketplace that showcases the purest form of collectibles, ones that are truly immutable and that will exist on satoshis forever. Our aim is to empower creators and collectors, providing them with the tools and infrastructure they need to succeed. Our marketplace was built within a month, culminating in a hackathon in California with over a dozen devs. We’ve loved every step of the journey.
Our decision to support Bitcoin is driven by several key factors:
Getting back to our roots and exploring emerging markets: As the original and most prominent blockchain, Bitcoin holds a unique place in the hearts of many. We are the first major marketplace on Bitcoin and are excited to be in another pre-product market fit environment where we can learn and iterate quickly and support an emerging market. It reminds us of our early days on Solana, of finding something really special and growing an ecosystem alongside creators and collectors.
Delivering the best marketplace experience on chain: Creating a marketplace on Bitcoin challenges the status quo and showcases our ability to overcome technical barriers. Now you can easily buy, sell, list, and bid on collectibles with our familiar and intuitive interface on our platform.
- Wallets partners: We’re excited to partner with Hiro and Xverse to bring a familiar wallet transaction experience onto the marketplace.
- Wen Launchpad? While we’re launching with a secondary collectibles platform, we have already been met with enormous demand to provide a Launchpad to deliver inscription services directly to creators. We are thinking through the best approach to this and will share more to come.
- Royalties? We spent a lot of time on how to handle royalties in this new ecosystem where there is very little tooling and no secure and trustless enforcement solutions. With no royalty standard today, we have decided to launch on Bitcoin without royalty support for now. We believe that this is most in-line with the ethos of the ecosystem, and despite this, we are actively looking into the development of an on-chain, permissionless royalty standard and are committed to working with creators and the greater community.
Continuing our multichain journey: By this point, we are no stranger to chain expansion. We’ve built marketplaces on Solana, Polygon, and are re-planning a more concerted entry into Ethereum. We’re excited to apply our learnings to the Bitcoin ecosystem and create cross pollination across chains.
Supporting the Bitcoin culture: By building on Bitcoin, we contribute to the culture of trust, security, and decentralization that is synonymous with the blockchain. This move aligns with our mission to promote the benefits of collectibles and blockchain technology while remaining true to the principles that underpin the technology. To help push the ordinal ecosystem forward, we also plan to open source key pieces of our marketplace infrastructure in the near future. We want to do our part and share the discoveries we’ve made to help this space flourish.
Join us on this exciting journey, as we continue to break down barriers and redefine the NFT landscape. We invite you to follow our new Bitcoin handle on Twitter and email to stay up to date with our latest developments. See you on our Bitcoin marketplace.
