✨ Season 2

GM! 

It’s finally Friday. What a week it’s been. 

Token prices are largely flat in the past day, with BTC and ETH making very slight gains in the past week after all that downward price action. Gaming tokens are a mixed bag, though, with some up over the past week (like IMX), while others — including SUI, RON, and GUNZ — are down.

If you want to figure out how to get ME tokens, you’ve come to the right place. Ready, set, go!

— Kate Irwin

P.S. Let me know how you’re liking The Drop! Send me an email at [email protected].

Magic Eden’s Season 2 begins

Crypto marketplace Magic Eden’s Season 2 campaign launched on Thursday to reward users for engaging with its platform.

Staking Magic Eden ME tokens, trading NFTs, Runes, Ordinals or coins and linking your crypto wallets on Magic Eden will all help you climb the season’s leaderboard to ultimately earn rewards in a few months. Runes are fungible tokens on the bitcoin blockchain, and Ordinals are like NFTs, but on bitcoin. 

Swapping tokens on Magic Eden will also help traders climb the leaderboard, according to a post from the firm. The post suggests the rewards for this season will consist of ME tokens again, like in Season 1.

This time, Magic Eden has said rewards are based on staking power and trading volume per user. It’s also changed up the visual look of the season and has updated the look of its leaderboard.

Magic Eden’s Season 1 ended March 31 and resulted in a total of 10 million ME tokens being distributed to participants, currently worth about $8 million. Staking ME and completing quests in Season 1 granted users rewards.

Season 2’s top participants are expected to receive rewards at the end of the season in mid-August.

“Long-term, we’re super bullish on NFTs,” Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu previously told Blockworks in an interview, adding that the company is profitable despite broader bearish sentiment in the crypto industry (Lu said Magic Eden made $70 million to $75 million in 2024). 

Magic Eden still sees more success with Solana than Ethereum. On Thursday, daily Ethereum NFT volume from Magic Eden was around just $14,800, or 0.56% of the total ETH NFT volume traded. OpenSea, Blur and CryptoPunks’ trading platforms are in the lead by volume, according to data from one Dune dashboard that filters out wash trading. 

Magic Eden’s Solana roots make it a popular place to trade SOL-based NFTs, though. On March 31, it saw over $3 million in daily volume from Solana NFTs alone (it saw just $12,651 in ETH NFT volume that day). 

OpenSea is one of Magic Eden’s biggest competitors because both marketplaces target new and seasoned traders and offer a range of NFT art, profile pictures and gaming assets. But Tensor is arguably Magic Eden’s biggest competitor when it comes to Solana NFT trading (though both will have to compete with OpenSea in that category soon, too).

OpenSea has trailed Magic Eden when it comes to adding a native token. OpenSea announced SEA in February 2025, six months after Magic Eden unveiled ME in August 2024.

OpenSea recently enabled Solana token trading, but still doesn’t support trading Solana-based NFTs yet. OpenSea supports a slew of other chains, though, whose native tokens are all smaller than Solana by market cap.

Magic Eden has taken steps to adapt to the changing market. Earlier this month, the marketplace announced the acquisition of mobile trading app Slingshot. No integrations between Magic Eden and the app are in the works — at least for now.

• ICYMI: Kraken is laying off more staff in cuts that may be in the “hundreds,” multiple news outlets have reported. Kraken previously laid off 15% of its workforce (or about 400 employees) in October.

• Crypto AI firm ElizaOS launched Auto.fun — a platform like pump.fun, but for launching AI agents. 

• Crypto exchange OKX entered the US market this week with a centralized exchange offering and a US HQ in San Jose, CA.

• Avalanche-based crypto mobile game Paradise Tycoon opens a portal next week, meaning new content is coming!

• Tamagotchi-inspired crypto game Kamagotchi unveiled tokenomics for its ONYX token.