Welcome to web3. Web3 means something different to everyone, but for us, it means offering transparency in a fast-moving, evolving environment. Magic Eden’s mission is to serve the next generation of digital creators. We aim to provide the slickest, most delightful marketplace experience for creators and collectors to meet each other. This requires trust in each other and in our platform, so we’ve outlined the responsibilities and information each of us needs in order to participate.

TL;DR

• Magic Eden: It’s our responsibility to provide a reliable platform with important information about NFT projects

• Creators: Their responsibility is to deliver on the collection’s promises and provide adequate transparency to potential collectors so they can make informed decisions

• Collectors: When collectors mint, trade or support an NFT project, they are responsible for performing their own due diligence

Projects’ outcomes and creator actions are not guaranteed by Magic Eden in any way.

Magic Eden’s Responsibilities

Secondary Marketplace

Creators can now access a self-service portal where they can upload their collections for review. Our team will provide approval or rejection as expeditiously as possible.

Launchpad

We are delighted to welcome back Launchpad with improved and transparent vetting policies. 

All users should also use Launchpad at their discretion. We previously refunded and derugged projects, partially because our policies were unclear and therefore so were the community’s expectations of us. Moving forward, we are making our policies clear. We believe these policies will protect the quality of projects, but we do not guarantee the outcome of any Launchpad project beyond fulfilling our requirements below. We will only refund projects that rug (meaning clear indication that they will no longer fulfill their roadmap) within the escrow period following the completion of their mint. Since we will require all projects to hold their funds in escrow for at least 24 hours, we will simply return the funds from our escrow account to users.

We commit to vetting all Launchpad projects on two levels: safety signals and project quality signals. All Launchpad projects will be evaluated by at least two members of our business development team.

Safety signals

Safety signals represent the minimum thresholds we will require for all Launchpad projects:

• Private dox: All team leads will need to privately dox

• Escrow funds: Projects will be required to escrow funds after the completion of the mint for at least 24 hours. Projects will have the option to utilize longer escrow periods to demonstrate a strong commitment to the community. The creator's decision will be displayed on the Launchpad UI

• Verified wallet: Afterwards, funds will be transferred to the creator’s verified wallet on FTX, Coinbase or Crypto.com

• Legal Contract: All Launchpad projects will be required to sign a legal partnership agreement.

Project quality signals

Project quality signals represent the additional thresholds we will apply to ensure projects are beneficial to the Solana ecosystem:

• Team quality: We will evaluate the background and experience of project teams

• Known partners: We will take note of projects that are working with partners, community members, or institutional investors (not mandatory)

• Project investment: We will evaluate the investment of capital, time, and effort the team has made in the project

• High quality whitepaper/litepaper: For gamefi or tokenomics-based projects, we will require a high quality whitepaper that explains the project’s thesis

• Roadmap: We like to see when teams have already made progress on their roadmap and when games can show a proof of concept. We will look for realistic roadmaps

• Art quality: We will check for the existence of copies and require projects to verify that they have full permission to use their artwork

• Social engagement: We expect projects’ Twitter and Discord communities to have authentic engagement and followers. We assess for realistic mint quantity given community size

Creator Responsibilities

Creators minting on Launchpad

Projects are responsible for providing thorough content to inform our users who they are and why their project is worth funding:

• Summary of project 

• Link to social accounts

• Team background with badge denoting team has privately doxxed

• Indication of how long funds are to be held in escrow

• Partners / investors (if applicable)

• Project roadmap

After mint, creators are responsible for continuing to engage with their communities and fulfill their roadmap to their fullest potential.

Creators on the Secondary Market

We have incorporated feedback from our community to strengthen our expectations of creators who want to list their collections on our core secondary marketplace.

Criteria #1: Meet our Content Guidelines

We developed these content guidelines to honor original creators and serve the communities they build. Magic Eden aims for content on its platform to be respectful, appropriate, law-abiding, and adaptive.

Criteria #2: Submit an application in the Creator Portal

In our creator self-service portal, creators are responsible for filling in all necessary information and making it easy for collectors to do their own research. Creators could do this by providing links to their respective social channels (e.g., Discord, Twitter, official website). Please fill out these applications at your soonest convenience. You can fill in the application without a hash list and add it after minting. We prefer to have the rest of your info as soon as possible.

Criteria #3: Showcase noticeable distinction from other collections

Our previous stance was that any collection that was not a direct copy paste would be approved on Magic Eden and be badged as a derivative. We’ve observed the community’s desire to ban certain collections that too closely resemble other collections. We will reserve the right to refuse collections that do not show meaningful difference from another collection and have no evidence of community to support their project. If there is a situation where users believe a scam or copy paste project has been uploaded, we welcome the community to flag the collection.

Collector Responsibilities

Collectors are responsible for doing their own research. By minting or trading NFTs, collectors are choosing to support projects willingly. Magic Eden will not refund users for rugs on our core secondary market.

We welcome collectors to engage in the following actions:

• Flagging collections with a warning: Collections that attract an inordinately high number of flags will be flagged with a warning visible to users who visit the collection.

• Taking down collections: Should an owner of original artwork and other intellectual property submit an IP infringement form, the collection in question will be taken down in accordance with our copyright infringement claims process.

• Badging derivatives: Should we deem a collection to bear close similarities to a different collection or known digital assets, then we will assign it a derivative badge. If a project wishes to have this derivative badge removed, please contact our help desk. We will adjudicate based on several criteria which could include (but are not limited to) whether or not you receive endorsement from the original creator, the size and engagement of your community, and the strength of your project’s roadmap. 

Please know that given how quickly Solana NFTs are evolving, these decisions will always be part art and part science. We always love to hear from you so we can continue to make the right changes that benefit the community.