Metaplex December 2024 Recap
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Metaplex December 2024 Recap
Metaplex DAO spent $8.3 million to repurchase MPLX tokens, demonstrating strong confidence in and strategic positioning for the future.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Metaplex
Translation: Nicky, Foresight News
Highlights
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Fungible Tokens: Over 10 million fungible tokens have been minted via Metaplex, with 1.3 million created in December—the second-highest month on record.
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Core Adoption: Nearly 1.6 million assets have been minted through Core, including over 400,000 in December—setting a new monthly high.
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Active Wallets: In December, 980,000 unique wallets signed transactions through the protocol, marking an all-time high.
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Aura Growth: Aura’s beta continued to expand, processing 40 million read requests across Solana and Eclipse during December.
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Protocol Fees: Driven by surging activity in meme coins, AI tokens, and other areas, protocol fees exceeded $3.1 million (14,867 SOL), the second-highest month ever.
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MPLX Token Purchase: $8.3 million worth of MPLX (approximately 1% of total supply) was purchased using 12,000 SOL from Metaplex protocol fees for the Metaplex DAO treasury—the largest single acquisition of MPLX to date.
Protocol Activity
In December, 1.4 million Token Metadata assets were created—the second-highest monthly total on record. Of these, 1.3 million (89%) were fungible tokens, making December the second consecutive month in which over one million fungible tokens were minted via Metaplex. This sustained creation has been driven by ongoing meme coin activity and a growing number of newly launched AI tokens. To date, more than 10.1 million fungible tokens have been created using Token Metadata, accounting for over 20% of all Token Metadata assets.
December marked another record-breaking month for Core asset creation, with 401,000 Core assets created—the highest monthly volume to date—and a 13% increase from the previous month.
In total, creators and developers minted 160 million digital assets via Metaplex in December, including 158 million compressed NFTs—an increase of 678% in monthly compressed NFT mints.
In December, 980,000 unique wallets directly interacted with the protocol—marking the highest number of unique signers in a single month and a 12% increase month-over-month.
In terms of transaction volume, Metaplex ranked as the second-largest protocol on Solana in December, and fifth when ranked by active wallet count.
By the end of December, the total number of Metaplex collectors reached nearly 85 million unique wallets, adding over 25 million wallets per month.
Developer Platform
Aura
In December, Metaplex’s decentralized data network Aura—built for Solana and SVM—achieved significant growth and performance improvements. Aura now supports read requests for DAS methods and RPC calls on both Solana and Eclipse networks.
Aura transitioned from private to public beta in December, with steady adoption among developers. The network processed 40 million read requests from Eclipse and Solana that month, reflecting rapid developer uptake and rising demand.
Initial documentation for Aura has been released, equipping developers with resources to build responsive applications on Solana and Eclipse. Integration with Triton has also enhanced RPC support for Eclipse developers, enabling them to execute both RPC calls and DAS methods through a single endpoint.
Performance remains a key focus: average latency for asset retrieval dropped by 80%, down to 97 milliseconds, making Aura the fastest digital asset indexing solution on Solana. Read consistency has reached over 99.9%, ensuring developers can access on-chain data with near-perfect accuracy.
Aura will soon be available via a public gateway UI, currently in testing. Developers interested in early access can contact the team directly for more information. With additional performance upgrades and upcoming staking and rewards features, Metaplex plans to further expand Aura’s capabilities in Q1.
AI Agents
The AI ecosystem on Solana experienced explosive growth in December, with increasing numbers of AI agent tools and platforms integrating with Metaplex. These agents improve accessibility to the Metaplex protocol, enabling users to interact with the on-chain economy through simple commands.
SendAI made waves in the ecosystem with its launch of the Solana Agent Toolkit—a open-source toolkit for connecting AI agents to Solana. SendAI’s toolkit leverages MPL (Metaplex Protocol Libraries), allowing developers to launch and mint NFTs and fungible tokens powered by Metaplex.
Griffain has emerged as a leading AI agent platform, enabling users to create core assets and memecoins using the Token Metadata standard.
More integrations are expected in the coming months, opening new avenues for growth in on-chain activity and protocol adoption.
New Metaplex Website Launch
In December, the new official Metaplex website launched, offering a refreshed experience that reflects Metaplex’s evolution and expanding role in the ecosystem. The site features improved navigation, a dedicated ecosystem page showcasing projects built with Metaplex, and deeper insights into Metaplex’s growing product and service suite. It also integrates educational resources, ecosystem news, and governance updates, serving as a central hub for all things Metaplex.
Core
In December, cumulative digital assets minted via Metaplex Core surpassed 1.5 million, further solidifying its leadership in NFT creation on Solana and SVM.
New integrations underscored Core’s broad adoption, such as Backpack, which now displays on-chain attributes directly within the wallet. This integration enhances the gaming experience by allowing players to view critical asset traits like level, health, and strength directly in their wallets.
Documentation & Developer Guides
In December, we released new resources to help developers optimize their workflows. A new guide detailed strategies for optimizing priority fees and compute units, improving on-chain success rates, speeding up transactions, and reducing costs.
Additionally, Yuki from the Japanese Metaplex community produced a series of video tutorials covering key Metaplex tools and features. These hands-on demonstrations enable developers to use Metaplex tools more quickly and effectively.
Metaplex DAO
Metaplex Protocol Fees & MPLX Token Purchases
Last month, 12,000 SOL was used to purchase 8.3 million MPLX tokens (approximately 1% of total supply), which were donated to the Metaplex DAO treasury—the largest single acquisition of MPLX to date. This includes 50% of November’s protocol fees (7,816 SOL) plus a portion of historical fees (4,184 SOL).
This marks the seventh contribution of MPLX to the Metaplex DAO. As previously announced, 50% of monthly protocol fees, along with accumulated historical fees, are allocated toward purchasing MPLX to support decentralized, community-driven governance.
December’s protocol fees were the second-highest on record, generating $3.1 million or 14,869 SOL. This brings the cumulative fees generated by the protocol over its lifetime to over 174,000 SOL.
DAO Grants Program
December was a milestone month for the Metaplex DAO Grants Program, as the first cohort of grantees was announced, driving innovation in Core and MPL-404. From the program’s launch, multiple teams received funding to develop on Metaplex.
A standout grant was awarded to SILICONS to develop Sili Launch, an NFT and hybrid DeFi launchpad powered by MPL-404. Publique was also selected—one of the first participants in the Metaplex Startup Program—focused on expanding its narrative ecosystem using Metaplex technology. FaenoraVerse also received a grant to integrate MPL-404 into its roguelite strategy RPG. Big Diggas was included in this cohort, with further details to be shared in the coming weeks.
The Metaplex DAO Grants Program is actively accepting new applicants. Developers, creators, and projects interested in building with Core or MPL-404 are encouraged to apply for the next cohort.
Metaplex Yield Initiative
In December, the Metaplex DAO approved Forgd’s proposal for the “Metaplex Yield Program – Season 1,” allocating 1,000,000 MPLX to boost on-chain liquidity and reward liquidity providers. This two-month initiative will distribute MPLX across liquidity pools on major Solana DeFi protocols, enhancing trading depth and ecosystem integration.
This initiative introduces new reward opportunities for the Metaplex community and lays the groundwork for deeper DAO engagement through on-chain MPLX incentives. Any unused tokens after the event will be returned to the DAO treasury. The program will launch in January, with reward distribution details to follow.
Community
New Reports from Blockworks and Mint Ventures
This month, research platform Blockworks and Asian investment firm Mint Ventures each released reports on the Metaplex protocol.
Metaplex Featured on Token Warrant Podcast
In December, Metaplex was invited to appear on the Token Warrant podcast to discuss building on Solana and the future of digital assets. James Ho, Co-founder of Modular Capital, and Mackenzie Hom, Strategic Lead at the Metaplex Foundation, joined host Mike Zajko to explore Metaplex’s role in driving innovation and expanding the MPLX community. The episode covered the evolving Solana infrastructure, on-chain economies, and Metaplex’s roadmap for empowering developers building decentralized applications on Solana and SVM.
Germany Superteam Camp
In early December, the Metaplex team supported a three-day Solana camp hosted by Superteam Germany, where developers gained hands-on experience with Solana fundamentals and NFT development. Leo, Metaplex’s Head of Developer Relations, led a workshop focused on digital asset creation and Candy Machine setup, guiding participants through the process of building and deploying a collection. The team also engaged with developers and distributed Metaplex merchandise.
The camp brought together local teams including Dialect and Turbine. SuperteamDE also hosted a bounty competition, attracting developers eager to begin or advance their journey on Solana.
Metaplex Ambassador Campaign
In December, Metaplex launched an ambassador campaign, distributing 19,000 MPLX tokens per week for five consecutive weeks to reward community members for promoting Metaplex on social media. The first week saw strong global participation, and subsequent weeks continued to drive engagement, raising awareness of the Metaplex suite and DAO.
AthensDAOx
Metaplex will participate in the third edition of AthensDAOx at the end of January, represented by team members Scharko, Leo, and Tony. Tony and Leo will lead a workshop on building with digital assets, offering hands-on training for builders looking to deepen their understanding of Metaplex tools and the Solana ecosystem.
Application Ecosystem
In December, the application ecosystems on Solana and Metaplex saw significant growth as developers launched new products, added features, and explored novel use cases. Highlights include:
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Send Arcade integrated Metaplex’s AI assistant to enhance user experience, combining AI-driven interactions with on-chain assets.
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Griffain launched as an AI agent platform, integrating multiple on-chain protocols to create new experiences. Griffain agents can generate Core assets in 60 seconds, expanding access to asset creation and powering the next wave of AI-driven on-chain tools.
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Nosana AI added support for Metaplex, giving developers new tools to automate on-chain processes.
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Truffle launched a hybrid edition powered by Metaplex, introducing dynamic pricing models and enhanced NFT distribution.
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Magic Eden launched its ME token, allowing users to claim and stake tokens directly through the MagicEden app. The ME token, backed by TokenMetadata, introduces governance, a rewards system, and future responsibilities for stakers.
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higherrrrrrr.fun migrated to Solana, leveraging Metaplex infrastructure to power its platform and assets.
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3land launched a platform for trading meme token cards, combining NFTs with meme token mechanics and issuing its first set of tradable cards.
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Wasabi Protocol joined the Solana ecosystem, partnering with Metaplex to launch its Spicy Tokens, which utilize the underlying asset framework provided by Metaplex.
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Jpegs.fun announced its launch on Solana, powered by Core, bringing a new NFT and memecoin trading experience to the ecosystem.
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Pix.fun launched, using Token Metadata to support the creation and trading of memecoins, featuring revenue sharing and security features.
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print.world launched as a Solana-based platform, using Token Metadata to support memecoin issuance, offering customizable token pages, dynamic bonding curves, and automation tools designed for creators.
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Curved, a new launchpad for minting hybrid NFTs on bonding curves, announced an exclusive partnership with Magic Eden, leveraging its marketplace to bring new opportunities for NFTs and the broader ecosystem.
Creator Ecosystem
In December, creators across the ecosystem continued to push boundaries, build on-chain communities, and engage audiences through digital assets. Notable highlights include:
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Pudgy Penguins launched the PENGU token, powered by Token Metadata, integrating its community into the Solana ecosystem.
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Portals, after showcasing next-gen AI agents and games, was selected to collaborate with founding members of xAI and Grok. Portals plans to integrate AI agents into its expanding virtual world and offer early access to developers and creators.
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MonkeDAO hosted its annual “24 Days of Monke” event, a holiday campaign offering holders over $50,000 in prizes and daily free-to-play games. Participants could win rewards by playing a custom claw machine game, with MonkeDAO matching all ecosystem-sponsored prize pools at a 1:1 ratio.
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The CRAB launched the first NFT-powered book, using Metaplex to merge literature with on-chain assets and create new interactive experiences.
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Hermans used Metaplex and AI to create mood-changing NFT PFPs (profile pictures), enabled by the Core AppData plugin.
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