Magic Eden, that launched as an NFT marketplace in 2021, is pivoting focus away from these digital collectibles as the market for them remains in slumber. The platform is set to pull down the shutters on its Bitcoin Ordinals and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible NFTs.
Ordinals are NFTs minted on Bitcoin’s lowest unit, the Satoshi. EVM-compatible NFTs, meanwhile, are those based on the Ethereum mother chain as well its Layer-2 chains like Polygon, Base, BNB Smart Chain, and Arbitrum among others.
Between 2022 and 2023, Magic Eden rolled marketplaces dedicated to these categories for NFTs because the hype around these tokenized digital assets was at peak at the time.
Owing to the big drop in the NFT market in recent years, Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu has decided to stop the business bleed and pivot to offer Solana-based crypto casino and sports betting service called Dicey.
“The 80/20 rule has become our reality: 80 percent of our cost are tied to products generating only 20 percent of our revenue. By winding down these products, we’re refocusing on our Solana roots & retaining our most profitable products, betting on deep on crypto entertainment,” Lu posted on X over the weekend.
He informed the community that Dicey has already been tested in a closed beta for two months and is coming closer to its commercial launch.
Magic Eden will still allow users to purchase NFT packs that are comprised of NFT pieces from different collections.
“We are winding down support for our EVM marketplace (March 9), Bitcoin (Runes & Ordinals) marketplace (March 9), Bitcoin API (March 27), and the Magic Eden Wallet (April 1). We will be winding down NFT buybacks as they had minimal impact,” Lu added.
NFTs or non-fungible tokens can be explained as the blockchain-versions of physical or digital content including game characters, artwork, and music among others. They rose to popularity around 2021 and 2022, making for key ingredients in brand loyalty programmes for enterprises like Ferrari, Nike, Adidas, and Starbucks among others. Celebrities like Snoop Dog and Justin Bieber also dabbled in NFTs — purchasing expensive ones back in the days. These digital collectibles were famously tradeable in gaming and metaverse ecosystems for crypto tokens.
The hype around NFTs fizzled after the crypto market experienced major volatility between 2023 and 2025. As per reports, 90 percent of the NFTs minted in 2021-2022 have lost all financial value.
Struggling with the market bleed, even the OpenSea NFT marketplace is working on a crypto-focused pivot.