Magic Eden’s Solana NFT Marketplace Comes to Exodus Mobile Wallet

Cryptocurrency wallet Exodus has partnered with Magic Eden to integrate an NFT marketplace into its mobile app using the Solana blockchain.

Anticipating that users want a simple way to interact and access their NFTs, Exodus says with the new feature, collectors can transfer Solana-based NFTs straight from their browser-based wallets or Solana NFT marketplace to their Exodus app.

Magic Eden is the second-largest NFT marketplace on the Solana network with a current transaction volume of $267.14 million since its September 2021 launch, according to data from Web3 analytics website DappRadar.com. As previously reported by Decrypt, Magic Eden has roughly half as many users as leading Ethereum NFT marketplace OpenSea but processes twice as many transactions.

The Magic Eden NFT marketplace in the Exodus mobile app allows users to search for a particular collection of Solana NFTs and search by price range. Collectors can share their favorite NFTs with friends on social media or transfer the NFT from their wallet to another wallet while in the app.

Solana is the main rival to Ethereum for decentralized finance and NFT applications because developers have prioritized high speed and low transaction costs, sometimes at the expense of security and network uptime. Solana’s native coin, SOL, is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

Exodus CEO and co-founder JP Richardson told Decrypt the wallet company chose Solana over Ethereum to appeal to mainstream users. “And so to think that on OpenSea, people are going to see a price of $40, $50, $60 in gas for maybe a $5 NFT. They’re going to freak out,” he said. “So we chose Solana because of the transaction cost and speed. It just made sense to us.”

Adding the Magic Eden NFT marketplace is the latest move in Exodus’ Solana integration. Already, Exodus users could store Solana-based NFTs in the mobile app and earn staking rewards by holding Solana tokens (Sol) on Exodus. Launched in 2015, Exodus’ mobile app currently supports over 150 digital assets and integration with crypto exchange FTX, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried has actively pushed Solana.

Richardson says that while there are plans to integrate NFTs with the desktop version of Exodus, the focus right now is making the best mobile experience for Exodus users.