Magic Eden Review

Magic Eden is rated in the NFT marketplaces category on five equally weighted criteria. Since 9 March 2026 it trades only Solana NFTs, after closing its EVM and Bitcoin marketplaces. This entry rates that Solana marketplace. It is desk research from Magic Eden's help center and the ME Foundation's GitHub repositories, checked on 1 November 2026, not a hands-on test. The overall score is 7.6 out of 10, up from 4.4 in July.

How Magic Eden scores in NFT marketplaces

Each criterion carries the same weight, so the score is the plain average: (9 + 9 + 10 + 4 + 6) / 5 = 38 / 5 = 7.6.

All five marks changed. Licence & code openness rose from 2 to 10 and Verification & audits from 2 to 6. The July review found no licence or audit, but the ME Foundation's repositories publish both. Royalty policy rose from 7 to 9 and Fee transparency from 8 to 9 after we read the royalties guide. That guide states who pays the fee and who pays the royalty, the same detail that earns other entries a 9. Chain coverage rose from 3 to 4 under this category's scale rule: a single, clearly documented chain scores 4, as it does for Tensor and SuperRare.

Where Magic Eden scores best

Open, current marketplace code

The program that settles Magic Eden's Solana listings, bids and sales is M2. Its repository is public on the ME Foundation's GitHub under the Apache-2.0 licence, with a LICENSE file, and was last pushed on 20 February 2026. The MMM program behind its NFT liquidity pools is published the same way. That meets the criterion in full: the code is readable, reusable under a stated licence and maintained. The mark is 10, the same as peers with maintained MIT-licensed repositories. We did not check whether the deployed program matches a reproducible build of that code.

Fees and royalties that say who pays

The fee article (dated 9 March 2026) states 0% to list and that Magic Eden "takes 2% on all transactions". The optional-royalties guide completes the picture: the seller receives the list price minus Magic Eden's fee, and the buyer pays the list price plus the royalty they chose. Take a 10 SOL listing in a collection with a 5% royalty and the buyer on the default setting. The buyer pays 10.5 SOL, the creator receives 0.5 SOL and the seller receives 9.8 SOL. Solana network fees come on top.

The royalty rule has two branches, and both are written down. Collections on the MIP-1 programmable-NFT standard have royalties enforced. On all other collections the buyer picks full, half or none, and full is the default. That is the same model, with the same detail about who pays, that earns Tensor a 9, so Magic Eden now scores 9 too. A creator still gets less when a buyer opts out on a non-MIP-1 collection. The mark reflects how clearly that is disclosed, not a view on the policy.

Where Magic Eden falls short

Audits: the core program is not covered

The MMM repository's security section links an "Audit by Halborn", and so does the Open Creator Protocol repository. The M2 repository, which handles ordinary listings and sales, has no audit file or security section. So the code most trades pass through has no published audit. That is why the mark is 6, below entries whose main exchange contract has a named audit (7 to 9). We did not open the audit reports, so we cannot say what they found.

Chain coverage: one network

The supported-blockchains help page now lists one network, Solana. The service-changes article sets out the closures: EVM and Bitcoin marketplaces ended on 9 March 2026, Bitcoin and Runes services on 27 March, and the Magic Eden Wallet shut down on 1 May. Magic Eden states its scope clearly, and a single, clearly documented chain scores 4 in this category, the same as Tensor on Solana and SuperRare on Ethereum. That is two points above a marketplace that does not state its chains (2). The breadth is what holds the mark at 4. A seller with Ethereum or Bitcoin NFTs can no longer use it.

What the score does not cover

• Packs and Lucky Buy, the chance-based products Magic Eden kept beside the marketplace. They are not scored here, and they can return less than you pay.
• The $ME token, staking and the separate Dicey product. Nothing here is a view on the token's price.
• Liquidity, volume and the identity of the operating company. Those belong to the company profile.
• Wallet safety. The main risk on a non-custodial marketplace is signing a malicious transaction; see our guide to avoiding wallet scams and phishing.

Magic Eden vs Tensor and OpenSea

These comparisons use only the marks currently recorded for each rated peer.

• Tensor is the other Solana marketplace in the ranking. It scores 7.2, 0.4 behind. It matches Magic Eden on fees and royalties (9 each) and on chains (4 each), but scores a point lower on licence (9 against 10) and audits (5 against 6), where its OtterSec and Neodyme reports are available only on request.
• OpenSea scores 8.4. It is ahead on chains (8) and audits (9) and level on licence (10). It is behind on fees (8) and royalties (7).

At 7.6, Magic Eden is third of eight, 0.2 behind Rarible (7.8) and 0.2 ahead of Element (7.4). The current order is in the NFT marketplace ratings.

Who this score suits

The score is most useful to Solana NFT traders and creators who want the fee, royalty and code terms written down before they list, and to developers who want to read maintained, openly licensed marketplace code. It is not useful for anyone trading on Ethereum or Bitcoin, which Magic Eden no longer supports. The score measures disclosure. It is not a recommendation to trade there.