Magic Eden Lays Off 22 Staff as Part of Company-Wide Restructuring

Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu explained that the company needed to make changes in order to reach new goals in 2023.

Magic Eden, a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, stated on Monday that it will be letting off 22 employees as part of a “company-wide restructure.”

In a tweet, CEO and co-founder Jack Lu indicated that the firm needs to make changes to its workforce in order to meet new targets in 2023.

“Just fifteen months ago, we were searching for product-market fit on Solana,” Lu wrote. “Since then, our business has grown significantly and the nature of our challenges has evolved. Our focus areas for 2023 include growing traction across chains, developing services for NFT creators, and exploring new use cases like rewards and social experiences. As we established these priorities for the year, we had to take a hard look at what structure and roles are needed. To be clear-eyed, addressing our strategic goals requires making changes to our team. In order to reach our goals, our team must encompass certain types of new skills and expertise without losing momentum.”

Many of the platform’s products are “facing new stages of growth,” according to Lu, who offered to assist impacted staff during the transition.

The largest Solana-based NFT marketplace has suffered since the price of SOL has dropped dramatically over the last year. As a result, it has increased support for Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs in order to compete with markets such as OpenSea.

Late last year, the firm became entangled in the creator royalties issue, transitioning to a royalty-optional model, which resulted in a short drop in trade volumes.

Several other NFT platforms have scaled back in recent months as the crypto winter continues to cool market activity. SuperRare, an NFT marketplace, lost 30% of its workforce last month, while OpenSea lay off around 20% of its workforce in July 2022.