What does MagicEden do?

The destination for discovering, trading, and creating NFTs

Who founded MagicEden?

MagicEden was founded by Jack Lu, Sidney Zhang, Zhuoxun Yin, Zhuojie Zhou, Rex Zhou in 2021.

Who are MagicEden's investors?

MagicEden's investors include 6th Man Ventures, Alameda Research, Bitcoin Frontier, Coinbase Ventures, DAO Jones, Draft Ventures Llc, Electric Capital, Greylock Partners and 11 more.

Where is MagicEden headquartered?

MagicEden is headquartered in San Francisco, US.

MagicEden

also invests · investor profileUnicorn · $1.6B

San Francisco, US · Founded 2021 · 126 employees on LinkedIn · 21 known investors

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Magic Eden is a crypto trading and entertainment platform that enables users to trade, mint, and collect digital assets including NFTs, tokens, and collectibles across multiple blockchains. The platform serves both traders and creators through a growing suite of products including a cross-chain wallet, mobile app, advanced trading tools, and gaming experiences.

Also known as Magic Eden · magiceden.io

Crypto & Web3 Gaming Marketplaces

Founders & leadership

MagicEden was founded in 2021 by Jack Lu, Sidney Zhang, Zhuoxun Yin, Zhuojie Zhou, and Rex Zhou.

Jack Lu FounderBefore co-founding Magic Eden in 2021, he worked as a product manager at Google from 2018 to 2021 and spent three years as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

Sidney Zhang FounderHe previously served as an engineering manager at Facebook and spent five years at Uber as a senior software engineer and later staff software engineer and research engineering manager. Earlier, he co-founded HelloBlock, where he was CTO from 2013 to 2015.

Zhuoxun Yin FounderHe came to Magic Eden from Coinbase, where he worked as a product manager and then senior product manager, and previously led strategy and business operations at dYdX. His earlier career included strategy and operations work at Nimble Pharmacy and a consulting role at Bain & Company.

Zhuojie Zhou FounderZhuojie Zhou co-founded and leads engineering at Magic Eden, a blockchain-based platform for trading and collecting digital assets. Previously, he was a staff engineer at Facebook working on AI infrastructure and PyTorch, and spent four years at Checkr building core backend services and open-source developer tools.

Rex Zhou Co-Founder | Chief EngineerRex Zhou co-founded Magic Eden, a crypto trading and NFT platform, where he leads engineering. He previously worked as a staff engineer at Facebook on AI infrastructure and frameworks (including PyTorch dev infra), spent four years at Checkr building core services such as its API gateway and gRPC framework, and created the open source projects Flagr and OpenMock.

Chris Akhavan Chief Business Officer2022–2026Chris Akhavan is Chief Gaming Officer at Magic Eden, a crypto trading and entertainment platform. He previously served as Chief Revenue Officer at Glu Mobile, where he expanded the publisher's annual revenue from $100M to $560M before its acquisition by Electronic Arts, and as SVP of Partnerships at Tapjoy, an ad tech company, where he led business development and sales operations.

Mike Son Chief Operating OfficerMike Son is Chief Operating Officer at Magic Eden, a crypto trading platform for digital assets. He previously led customer support and safety operations at Uber across Asia-Pacific after working as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group and in sales and business development at Shell; he holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dan BursteinGeneral Counsel, Magic Eden & Dicey.comGeneral Counsel at Magic Eden

Linus Chung VP & Head of Product2023–2025Linus Chung held product leadership roles at Bridge, Magic Eden, Coinbase, Pinterest, Tesla, and LinkedIn. At Magic Eden, he served as VP and Head of Product; at Coinbase, he was Head of Growth and led international expansion efforts that contributed to scaling the user base to over 100 million.

Zi WangHead Of Engineering2022–2024Head of Engineering at Magic Eden

Tiffany HuangFounder

Zedy YangFounder

Investors · 21

6th Man Ventureslisted by 6th Man VenturesNew York · $2M – $5M

How we know: 6th Man Ventures's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Alameda Researchlisted by Alameda ResearchCentral and Western

Bitcoin Frontierlisted by Bitcoin FrontierSan Juan

How we know: Bitcoin Frontier's portfolio page · Not right? Tell us

Coinbase Ventureslisted by Coinbase VenturesSan Francisco · $100K – $10M

How we know: Coinbase Ventures's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

DAO Joneslisted by DAO Jones

How we know: DAO Jones's portfolio page · Not right? Tell us

Draft Ventures Llclisted by Draft Ventures LlcSan Francisco

How we know: Draft Ventures Llc's portfolio page · Not right? Tell us

Electric Capitallisted by Electric CapitalPalo Alto · $1M – $20M

How we know: Electric Capital's portfolio page · funding news · the VCSheet dataset · research · coindesk.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Greylock Partnerslisted by Greylock PartnersSan Francisco · $100K – $10M

How we know: funding news · the VCSheet dataset · research · greylock.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Justin “3LAU” Blaulisted by Justin “3LAU” Blau

Kindred Ventureslisted by Kindred VenturesSan Francisco · $250K – $2M

How we know: open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Lightspeed Venture Partnerslisted by Lightspeed Venture PartnersMenlo Park · $1M – $5M

How we know: Lightspeed Venture Partners's portfolio page · research · greylock.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

MVP Ventureslisted by MVP VenturesChicago

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

Paradigmlisted by ParadigmSan Francisco · $1M – $100M

How we know: Paradigm's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · research · greylock.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Polygon Ventureslisted by Polygon VenturesDubai

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

Sequoia Capitallisted by Sequoia CapitalMenlo Park · $100K – $50M

How we know: Sequoia Capital's portfolio page · research · greylock.com · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Variant Fundlisted by Variant FundNew York · $250K – $750K

How we know: Variant Fund's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

Foundation CapitalreportedPalo Alto · $250K – $15M

How we know: open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Solana VenturesreportedSan Francisco · $10K – $250K

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

VOLT CAPITALreportedNew York · $100K – $1M

How we know: the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us

Also in the syndicate · 2

17-total investor count per Crunchbase / 9-more per CB InsightsGreylock

Funding

SEC filings, press & company announcements

Undisclosed amountSeries AMar 2022
Source ↗

Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.

Valuation · disclosed

Disclosed events

$1.6Bvaluation at Series BJun 2022

filing ↗

Source: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed — follow each entry's link for the claim.

Company profile

researched Aug 2026

Magic Eden was founded in September 2021 by Jack Lu, Zhuoxun Yin ('Zedd'), Sidney Zhang, and Zhuojie Zhou ('Rex') to build an NFT marketplace on Solana at a moment when Solana's low fees and high throughput were attracting NFT activity away from Ethereum. Lu, who began building bitcoin wallet apps in 2013 and later worked at FTX (where he says he 'saw the huge potential in Solana') and as a product manager at Google, became CEO. Yin, a crypto participant since 2017 who was employee #2 at dYdX and a senior PM at Coinbase, became COO. Zhang, who holds an MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and previously worked at Facebook and on Uber's Advanced Technologies (autonomous vehicles) group and co-founded blockchain-dev-tools startup HelloBlock, became CTO. Zhou, a crypto miner since 2014 and former early engineer at Uber and Checkr and staff engineer on Facebook AI's PyTorch infrastructure, rounded out the founding team as an engineering lead. Within roughly two months of launch the marketplace had done about $200M in trading volume, and within nine months it had captured roughly 92% share of NFT trading on Solana, with about 40,000 daily NFT transactions and 22 million unique monthly sessions -- by May 2022 its daily trading volume reportedly surpassed OpenSea's.

That rapid growth attracted institutional capital quickly: Magic Eden raised a Series A in early 2022 (investors reported to include Paradigm and Sequoia Capital, among others) and then, on June 21, 2022, announced a $130 million Series B at a $1.6 billion valuation, co-led by Greylock Partners and Electric Capital, with Greylock having also participated in the Series A. The company used the capital to expand beyond pure NFT trading -- partnering with Solana Labs on the Saga Web3 phone, building out a rewards program, launching an NFT creator-royalty protocol (later moving to an optional-royalty model under competitive pressure), and pushing into Web3 gaming, where it said it quickly captured over 90% of Solana gaming-NFT volume and hired former Glu Mobile/EA executive Chris Akhavan as its first Chief Gaming Officer.

From late 2022 through 2023, Magic Eden pursued aggressive multi-chain expansion and product breadth: it integrated Polygon-based NFTs (Nov 2022), launched a marketplace and creator launchpad for Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions (Mar-Apr 2023) as Ordinals activity boomed, added BRC-20 token support (June 2023), rolled out an Ethereum marketplace beta (Mar 2023, later formalized in Feb 2024 with Yuga Labs), and partnered with MoonPay to let users buy NFTs by credit card (Feb 2023). The company also weathered setbacks typical of the volatile 2022-2023 crypto downturn: a January 2023 exploit allowed fake listings of high-value collections (Magic Eden committed to refunding affected users), and in February 2023 it laid off 22 employees (about 11% of staff) as part of a restructuring that CEO Jack Lu said was necessary to 'reach new goals.' Through 2023 the company kept building out its Games Hub and cross-chain wallet (entering beta by November 2023) and hired Linus Chung as Head of Product (July 2023).

Business model

Operates NFT marketplaces (primary and secondary) across multiple blockchains plus a crypto wallet and, following the 2025 Slingshot acquisition, cross-chain crypto/token trading infrastructure; also runs a gaming hub/launchpad and a venture arm (Magic Eden Ventures) that invests in Web3 game studios.

Transaction/marketplace fees on NFT trading volume (with an optional, later mostly-optional creator royalty model), plus fees from token/crypto trading via its wallet and trading-app products; company has also issued its own ME token.

▸Full profile — profile (continued), go-to-market, ownership

Profile (continued)

By 2024, with NFT trading volumes broadly depressed industry-wide, Magic Eden continued diversifying: it expanded its cross-chain wallet and rewards program (Jan 2024), and it is widely reported to have launched its own ME token (airdropped to eligible users around September 2024) as it moved toward token-based incentive and governance mechanics -- a detail not independently re-confirmed by a primary source in this research session and flagged accordingly. Licensing/IP partnerships continued (e.g., Ubisoft/Arbitrum Foundation's Captain Laserhawk NFTs in Oct 2024, and DC/Warner-adjacent Batman, Rick and Morty, and Looney Tunes collections via Hybrid Meta in Nov 2024). In April 2025, Magic Eden made a notable strategic move beyond NFTs, acquiring crypto trading app Slingshot in order to 'broaden its offering beyond NFTs and streamline crypto trading across multiple blockchains' -- signaling a shift toward becoming a more general multi-chain crypto trading platform rather than a pure NFT marketplace.

More recently, per CB Insights reporting reflected in this research, Magic Eden appears to have further repositioned: in March 2026 it reportedly dropped Bitcoin and EVM (Ethereum/Polygon) NFT-marketplace support to refocus its NFT product specifically on Solana, where by mid-2026 it commanded roughly 38% of monthly NFT trading share (down from its ~92% peak in 2022, reflecting intensified competition from rivals such as Tensor). At the same time, the company has continued to invest in adjacent opportunities, including a reported investment commitment to iGaming startup DiceyHQ (late July 2026), an August 2026 push into Solana-based real-world collectibles (trading cards, wine, comics, fossils), and -- notably -- a reported sale/transfer of Magic Eden wallet infrastructure to Kraken parent company Payward (late July 2026), none of which were independently verified via primary press releases in this session and should be treated as provisional pending further confirmation. Magic Eden's total disclosed VC funding stands at roughly $170M across at least two priced equity rounds (Series A and the $130M Series B) plus smaller/undisclosed rounds, with backers including Greylock, Electric Capital, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Alameda Research (an early/ICO-era backer, per Crunchbase, prior to Alameda's 2022 collapse). Throughout, Jack Lu has remained CEO, with Magic Eden positioning itself as the primary Solana-native challenger to Ethereum-centric NFT incumbent OpenSea and Blur.

Go-to-market

Retail crypto/NFT collectors and traders, NFT creators and projects (via launchpads/minting tools), Web3 game studios and gamers, and (increasingly) general crypto traders via its wallet/trading app.

Ownership

private

Compiled by commissioned research from 26 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.

Key figures

latest reported

Bitcoin NFT marketplace share (historical)Jan 202680%

Daily NFT TransactionsJun 202240,000 transactions

Employee HeadcountAug 2026100 employees

EmployeesApr 2023133

First-day trading volumeSep 2021$50K

Funding stageApr 2023Series B

Launchpad acceptance rateApr 2023below 5%

Marketplace transaction feeApr 20232%

ME token price change, trailing 6 monthsJan 2026-80%

NFT collections listedDec 20211,500

Solana Gaming NFT Volume ShareDec 202290%

Solana NFT Market Share (early)Jun 202292%

Total Disclosed FundingJun 2023$170.3M

Total funding (disclosed)Apr 2023$170M

Trading Volume (first ~2 months)Nov 2021$200M

Unique Monthly SessionsJun 202222,000,000 sessions

Company-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.

Related companies · 10

CoingeckoCoinGecko is the world's largest independent cryptocurrency data aggregator, providing comprehensive market data including price, volume, and market capitalization across thousands of cryptoassets. It serves millions of users globally with tools, research, and APIs for cryptocurrency market analysis and insights.

CoinbaseCoinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that offers trading, custody, and financial services for cryptocurrencies, stocks, derivatives, and prediction markets to consumers, institutions, and developers. The company operates a full-stack infrastructure including secure custody, liquidity services, stablecoin infrastructure, and global settlement rails.

OpenseaCourtyard.io is a marketplace and tokenization service that enables users to own and trade physical collectible cards on the blockchain, with options to store them vaulted, sell them, or redeem the NFT for physical delivery.

CryptoCrypto.com operates a cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset platform serving 150 million users across 90 countries, with a mission to accelerate global adoption of cryptocurrency.

KrakenKraken 360 Investments provides capital and launch infrastructure to blockchain protocols in pre-token and early post-token phases, offering custody, staking, treasury, and liquidity services alongside fundraising support.

BitgetBitget is a cryptocurrency exchange offering spot trading, futures trading, and copy trading services for users worldwide. The platform provides a secure investment solution for crypto trading with regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions.

MEXC GlobalMEXC is a cryptocurrency exchange where users trade a range of tokens and futures, with features such as low fees and liquidity. It highlights asset security measures including a Guardian Fund, 1:1 backed reserves, and a futures insurance fund.

CryptoRankCryptorank is a data platform that tracks and publishes information on cryptocurrency funding rounds, project valuations, and investment activity. It aggregates and verifies funding data from public sources for the crypto market.

LedgerLedger provides hardware and software cryptocurrency wallet solutions that enable users to buy, swap, earn, and manage digital assets with security features and portfolio tracking capabilities across multiple blockchain networks.

KuCoinKuCoin is a global cryptocurrency trading platform trusted by over 45 million users that provides spot trading, leverage, options, derivatives, DeFi, lending, and mining services across more than 200 countries. The platform offers access to 1,000+ coins and includes features like copy trading, Web3 wallets, and institutional services, with a focus on security through multi-layered systems and compliance certifications.

Companies working in the same space as MagicEden.

Timeline · 33

launches, deals, and filings

Aug 2026

Solana real-world collectibles expansion

Magic Eden reportedly expands into Solana-based real-world collectibles (trading cards, wine, comics, fossils); not independently corroborated by a primary source in this session.

Jul 2026

DiceyHQ investment commitment (unconfirmed)

CB Insights signals indicate an investment commitment by Magic Eden into iGaming startup DiceyHQ; not independently corroborated by a primary source in this session.

Jul 2026

Wallet infrastructure deal with Kraken/Payward (unconfirmed)

CB Insights signals indicate Kraken parent company Payward acquired/absorbed Magic Eden wallet infrastructure around this date; not independently corroborated by a primary source in this session.

May 2026

Magic Eden Wallet final shutdown

The wallet app is scheduled to be removed from app stores on May 1, 2026, after which keys not backed up would be inaccessible.

Find your way into MagicEden

Founders & leadership

Investors · 21

Also in the syndicate · 2

Funding

Valuation · disclosed

Company profile

Business model

Profile (continued)

Go-to-market

Ownership

Key figures

Related companies · 10

Timeline · 33

▸Research sources · 26

Frequently asked questions