Magiceden is a Solana NFT Marketplace for Digital Collectibles

Magiceden is a marketplace for unique digital collectibles and wallet-based trading on Solana. It connects a self-custody wallet, displays collection listings and offers, and settles purchases in SOL through Solana transactions. The active marketplace is now centered on Solana; its former EVM and Bitcoin listing surfaces have ended. Collectors use it to buy single items, sweep several listings, place item or collection offers, and filter traits. Sellers list from their wallets or accept active bids. A 2% transaction fee applies to sales, while creator royalties follow the collection's standard and the buyer's available royalty choice. The sections below separate the buying flow, costs, supported assets, settlement mechanics, and competing venues.

An item offer must reach 50% of the Buy Now price before Magiceden accepts it.

A listing walkthrough from collection page to signed purchase

A Magiceden purchase moves from a collection filter to an item review, a wallet signature, and an on-chain transfer recorded by Solana.

Start on a collection page, where the floor, top offer, recent activity, and trait filters describe the market around a set. Selecting one item opens its mint, owner, attributes, royalty setting, and listing source. The checkout then combines the list price with the chosen creator royalty and the network charge. A wallet signature authorizes the sale instructions; it is not a password or a transfer of account custody. After confirmation, the NFT appears under the buyer's Solana address, and the seller receives the list price minus the marketplace fee.

When a collector wants one named trait, item detail matters more than the floor. For several low-priced items, sweeping and aggregation reduce repeated clicks. The final confirmation still lists each asset and total.

What does a Magiceden trade cost?

A standard Magiceden sale carries a 2% marketplace transaction fee, a 0% listing fee, the selected creator royalty, and Solana network fees.

One worked example uses three hypothetical inputs: a 10 SOL list price, a 5% creator royalty, and the choice to pay that royalty in full. The marketplace fee is fixed at 2%, so the seller receives 9.8 SOL: 10 minus 0.2. The buyer pays 10.5 SOL before the network charge: 10 plus 0.5. Listing itself costs 0% at marketplace level. Solana then adds the base fee and any optional priority fee shown by the wallet. The concrete marketplace-side result is a 10.5 SOL buyer total and 9.8 SOL in seller proceeds, as broken down in Magiceden limits in depth requirements.

One SOL equals 1,000,000,000 lamports. Solana charges a 5,000-lamport base fee for each signature, then adds an optional priority fee derived from requested compute units. That network component is separate from Magiceden's 2% marketplace charge.

Collection offers, trait filters, and shared escrow

Collection offers let Magiceden buyers bid across an entire verified set, while trait offers narrow eligibility and shared escrow reuses one funded balance.

Choosing the offer scope

Item-level precision

An item offer targets one mint and must sit below its listing price. Magiceden requires at least 50% of that item's Buy Now price, so the bid remains tied to a clearly identified asset rather than any member of the collection.

Collection-wide reach

A collection offer accepts any eligible item from the verified collection. Adding traits narrows that pool; an auto-decrease setting reduces later bid prices after earlier quantities fill.

Shared escrow provides the funding layer. One deposited balance backs up to 100 offers, which avoids reserving the full face value of every outstanding bid. If the remaining balance cannot cover an offer, that offer becomes inactive. Depositing SOL can reactivate it, so old orders deserve review before a top-up.

Item offers default to 7 days, with 1-day, 3-day, 7-day, 1-month, and custom expiry choices. Expiry removes the active order, while unused SOL remains in escrow until withdrawal. The mechanism fits broad bidding better than repeatedly funding separate offers.

Which assets and market tools remain available?

Magiceden now supports Solana marketplace activity across its active website, including standard Metaplex NFTs, programmable NFTs, Metaplex Core assets, compressed NFTs, Packs, and Lucky Buy. Marketplace access for EVM chains and Bitcoin ended on March 9, 2026, while the Solana marketplace, Solana Packs, and Solana Lucky Buy remained available. Collection pages also provide aggregated listings, bulk selection, item offers, collection offers, trait filters, and liquidity pools. Lucky Buy uses a 5% fee and excludes compressed NFTs and Core assets. Its probability-driven purchase differs sharply from an ordinary fixed-price sale.

Starting with a compatible Solana wallet

Starting on Magiceden requires a Solana-compatible wallet with enough SOL for the purchase, creator royalty selection, and every network signature the flow requests.

Phantom, Solflare, and Backpack are established Solana wallets that connect to marketplace applications. The former Magiceden Wallet and embedded Account Wallets were discontinued, so new access starts with an external compatible wallet. Fund that address with enough SOL for the asset total, chosen royalty, marketplace-inclusive checkout amount, and network signatures. Connecting proves control of the public address through a signed message. Buying, listing, depositing to escrow, or cancelling an order requires a transaction approval because each action changes on-chain state. A hardware wallet supported by the chosen interface adds a separate signing device without changing the marketplace workflow.

Before approval, match the collection and mint to the selected item, confirm whether SOL leaves the main wallet or enters escrow, and read the complete amount. A connect signature proves address control; a transaction signature authorizes state changes. Keeping those actions distinct prevents an accidental deposit when the intended action was only browsing.

Marketplace badges organize collections, but ownership and usage rights still come from the asset's metadata and license.

Royalty settings change the buyer's total

Royalty handling on Magiceden follows the asset standard: optional collections offer three buyer settings, while enforced standards apply the creator's configured percentage automatically.

Optional royalties on standard listings

Optional royalties present three choices: 100%, 50%, and 0% of the creator's configured rate. Full royalty is the default. Five hundred basis points equals 5%; choosing half reduces that rate to 2.5%, while none adds no creator payment. One basis point equals 0.01 percentage points, so the interface converts the stored integer into a readable rate. The buyer's selection affects the amount paid above the list price; the seller still receives the list price minus the 2% marketplace fee. This makes the royalty control a checkout cost decision, not a change to the displayed list price.

Enforced royalties in Metaplex standards

Metaplex Core's Royalties plugin stores basis points and creator splits, and it supports as many as 5 creator addresses. MIP-1 programmable NFTs use transfer rules that enforce configured royalties, so the optional 100%, 50%, and 0% selector does not apply. Standard Token Metadata royalties remain advisory unless a marketplace honors them. The distinction matters when comparing identical-looking checkout screens: one reflects a buyer preference, while the other follows the asset's transfer policy.

How does settlement work on Solana?

After that point, Magiceden settlement executes as an atomic Solana transaction that transfers the asset and payment together, while the connected wallet authorizes the required instructions.

Solana gives each transaction a maximum serialized size of 1,232 bytes and a recent-blockhash validity window of 150 slots. Each Ed25519 signature occupies 64 bytes, while account addresses are 32 bytes. A non-builtin instruction receives a default budget of 200,000 compute units, and a transaction caps execution at 1,400,000 units. These limits explain why a wallet sometimes requests a rebuilt transaction after the signing window expires. Atomic execution means all sale instructions succeed together or state changes roll back.

At asset level, Metaplex Token Metadata connects a mint with its collection, creators, attributes, and royalty data. A conventional SPL-token NFT uses a mint supply of 1 and 0 decimals. Compressed NFTs use Metaplex Bubblegum and Merkle-tree proofs, reducing per-asset account storage while changing the proof data that a marketplace submits. Metaplex Core represents assets without the SPL Token account pattern. Magiceden reads these standards and sends the matching program instructions rather than converting every collectible into one house format.

After settlement, Solscan displays the transaction signature, the transferred asset, and the owner address. That record is the durable receipt; interface activity feeds are convenient summaries.

Tensor, Exchange Art, and Solanart as alternatives

Tensor emphasizes advanced Solana trading orders, Exchange Art centers digital fine art, and Solanart provides another collection marketplace for Solana NFT collectors. Tensor is the closest substitute for collection bids, market-making orders, and a professional trading view. Exchange Art serves one-of-one works, editions, and artist-led discovery. Solanart offers straightforward collection browsing and secondary sales. OpenSea fits Ethereum and other EVM NFT activity, but it does not currently trade Solana NFTs. The better venue follows the asset's chain, listing depth, order type, and creator focus.

Details worth knowing about Magiceden