Ben Gruenbaum Accuses Magic Eden of Changing Rewards and Strategy After ME Lockups

Former Magic Eden community data analyst contributor and Magic Lab founder Ben Gruenbaum accused NFT marketplace Magic Eden on X of changing rewards, governance, product, and strategy after users locked up $ME for the long term. According to ChainCatcher, he said $ME has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens, with 225 million reserved for four years of active-user rewards that unlock linearly, while lockups can last up to four years and cannot be withdrawn early. Gruenbaum said Season 1 distributed 10 million $ME, then added 2.3 million more after issues, while Season 2 rewards were increased from 8 million to 10 million tokens. He also said the community fund started with 5 million $ME, and a Magic Lab proposal backed by the community sought 295,000 $ME, but the budget shrank as the token price fell. He added that users remained locked during the shutdown of Bitcoin and EVM markets, Runes infrastructure, and wallets, while rewards were shifted to USDC. Gruenbaum also said Magic Eden promised $75 million to Dicey, and some top stakers said they had problems claiming USDC and have filed lawsuits. He said the issue is not simply a token price decline, but a change in ecosystem terms after users made long-term commitments.