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Magic Eden And Metaplex Fights Over The Future of Solana NFTs
Solana has been at the epicenter of the industry’s continuing argument regarding enforcing NFT creator royalties.
When Magic Eden enforced optional royalties last October, other major marketplaces were forced to make changes as well. This is how the OpenSea on-chain creator fees were introduced.
Now, as builders try to change the direction of the Solana NFTs, disputes between major players in the space have broken out on social media.
Where It All Started
In a Twitter thread today, Metaplex, the company that created the Solana NFT standard, claimed that Magic Eden was attempting to take control of the standard through a “coordinated pressure campaign” that it was leading.
In the same thread, Metaplex also named Jordan Prince, who worked at Solana Labs and helped build the original Metaplex protocol, as a co-conspirator alongside Magic Eden.
Moreover, a standard defines the parameters and functions of a token which in this case is an NFT. Metaplex made the token standard for Solana NFTs. Therefore, it basically wrote the code and holds the keys for almost every NFT created on the network.
1/ gm Metaplex community. Over the past 24 hours, there has been a coordinated pressure campaign led by @MagicEden
and @redacted_j to take control over the multi-sig for token metadata and give it to themselves and a small group of their close allies for personal gain.
—
Metaplex (@metaplex) December 9, 2022
Magic Eden’s Response To Metaplex Accusations
Magic Eden then replied with its own Twitter thread, saying that Metaplex had “falsely accused us of trying to take control over the NFT standard on SOL.”
Earlier today, @metaplex falsely accused us of trying to take control over the NFT standard on SOL.
Many teams, including Solana Foundation, want
@metaplex
to decentralize governance of their token metadata standard so we can create a better ecosystem together.
—
Magic Eden (@MagicEden) December 9, 2022
The marketplace then said that Metaplex is trying to keep control of the standard for the benefit of the people who own its MPLX governance token, which it released in September.
Moroever, Magic Eden added that them along with other Solana builders had given Metaplex feedback on its plans. However, Magic Eden stressed that Metaplex had too much control over Solana’s NFT standard, hence the need for decentralization.
Metaplex Rebuttal
In response to claims that it has a monopoly on Solana NFTs, Metaplex announced today that it will disclose plans to decentralize control of its standard.
Metaplex added that it “agrees” with the “root need to decentralize the program.” However, the company stressed that it will not do so “haphazardly to appease a group that is acting in bad faith.”
3/ We’ll be publishing our plans to decentralize token metadata soon, but wanted to make a quick statement to clarify that we agree with the root need to decentralize the program, but will not be pressured into doing so haphazardly to appease a group that is acting in bad faith.
—
Metaplex (@metaplex) December 9, 2022
Magic Eden then invites Metaplex to a Twitter space to explain their plans. However, Metaplex refuses and says that they’d rather spend their time fleshing out their proposal today.
Thank you but we’d rather spend our time fleshing out the proposal today. And to be clear, we’ve been working on decentralization since the beginning. We look forward to your public comments on the next MIP
—
Metaplex (@metaplex) December 9, 2022
Magic Eden Twitter Space
Prince stated on the said Twitter Space, in which Metaplex refused to participate, that Magic Eden and other companies in the space had proposed a new decentralized governance model for Metaplex’s token metadata standard, in which seven individual companies or projects on Solana would each have three votes over the system.
As requested in the recent twitter space, here is the half-baked governance proposal that we offered to Metaplex and that they turned down. Over seven companies signed on to support it.
—
jprince.sol (@redacted_j) December 9, 2022
According to Prince, Metaplex rejected the proposal, claiming that Magic Eden and its allies were conspiring to seize control of the Solana NFT standard. Today’s tweets from Metaplex support that point of view.
What happens now?
The future of Solana NFTs is uncertain right now. Nearly two months after Magic Eden’s change in royalties, the Solana ecosystem is still figuring out how to move forward in a way that helps creators.
But if the latest accusations between Metaplex and Magic Eden are any indication, it may be hard to reach a decision when two of its most important players are publicly fighting against each other.