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According to an official post it shared via its X page, Magic Eden, a star from the NFT boom era, will now allocate 15% of all platform revenue to buybacks and staking rewards as of next month to redistribute value in the $ME token ecosystem.
The new program is a spinoff of its earlier buyback program, which started in late 2025 and initially focused 15-30% of fee revenue generated from the secondary marketplace on the $ME token and NFT repurchases.
Magic Eden unveils buybacks and USDC staking rewards
This new model expands on that. It is scheduled to take effect from February 1 and will cover revenue from the entire platform, including NFTs, packs, predictions, and other features.
“The goal is simple. When Magic Eden wins, the ecosystem wins too,” the announcement shared on X read. It also revealed the revenue will be split evenly, with 50% going to $ME buybacks while the other 50% will be distributed as USDC rewards to $ME stakers, based on staking power.
The post claims that the existing marketplace-only $ME buybacks are being replaced by this ecosystem-wide system, and staking power is determined by how much users stake and how long they stake it.
The USDC rewards will reportedly be claimable monthly, with the first claim to be made available in March for February activity. Those rewards will remain available for 90 days after that and must be claimed within that time frame.
The post did not elaborate on what will happen to unclaimed rewards after that time lapses.
The hybrid model has caught the interest of community members as it rewards long-term holders with real USDC yield, which could encourage fresh inflow and also reduce sell pressure on the token itself, all while providing buy support.
Some analysts estimate it could also deliver alluring APYs for stakers based on current revenue and staking levels. However, it should be noted that the actual yield will be tied directly to platform performance.
Magic Eden expanded beyond NFT trading since volumes declined
Magic Eden burst onto the NFT scene in 2021 and quickly dominated the sector, becoming prominent by offering low fees and creator-friendly tools. Over the years, it has facilitated over $15 billion in NFT trading volume.
However, after NFT trading volumes started to decline, the team had to make a decision: become obscure just like NFTs or pivot to stay relevant. It chose to pivot, quickly evolving over time into more than just a simple NFT marketplace to build a diverse set of revenue streams, which is why, in 2026, even though NFTs no longer command as much attention, it is still kicking.
That meaningful pivot started heating up between 2024 and 2025. It started by launching its own crypto wallet, which allows users to store and manage not only NFTs but also fungible cryptocurrency.
“We certainly are not retrenching our investment into NFTs; we are ramping it up even more,” Chief Executive Jack Lu said. “However, crypto does have a lot of ups and downs, and for us to diversify into more categories and use cases, that makes us more resilient and stronger.”
That development happened in January 2024 and marked its shift toward a platform that supported all chains and all assets. By April 2025, it announced the acquisition of Slingshot, a mobile-first on-chain crypto trading app, and it was described as the platform’s biggest move beyond NFTs, as it facilitated token trading across millions of tokens and multiple chains.
Magic Eden as a hub for crypto entertainment
The Slingshot purchase positioned the ME platform as a rival of CEXs and helped it diversify revenue into token trading. By the middle of 2025 and towards the end of the year, it had introduced more gamified entertainment features that helped it evolve into a crypto entertainment platform.
Towards the end of 2025, it continued its rebranding as a hub for on-chain entertainment, offering more gaming features and prediction markets, developments that kept encouraging activity on the platform while generating revenue in the process.
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