Quick take:
- Leading Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden will integrate native tokens of top Solana NFT projects.
- OpenSea has recently teased its Solana integration happening this month.
- Solana gaming NFT platform Fractal has raised $35 million to expand its operations.
It’s no secret that most NFTs are minted on the Ethereum network, but the costly gas fees, network congestions and slow transaction speed are also known issues that come with minting and sending NFTs on Ethereum. As a result, many are now looking at Solana as an alternative to avoid these issues.
Ethereum’s competitor Solana is seeing a growing user base due to its high speeds, low congestion and low fees. Solana has a transaction speed of up to 65,000 per second, while Ethereum processes only 30 transactions per second. Gas fees on Solana are incredibly low at a fraction of a cent, while gas fees on Ethereum can cost between $30 to $1000.
While the low gas fees and fast transactions are a no-brainer for NFT creators and traders, Solana still has some catching up to do when it comes to security as it has suffered its fair share of hacks and DDoS attacks leading to poor network performance.
However, Solana is bouncing back as NFT platforms and projects built on the network are gaining traction. Leading Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden completed a $27 million fundraise last month and today announced that it will integrate native tokens of top NFT projects on the platform such as Aurory and DeGods so that users can purchase NFTs from any collection on the marketplace using AURY and DUST.
Commenting on the decision to integrate these tokens, Tiffany Huang, head of content and marketing at Magic Eden, told Decrypt: “We wanted to get those projects really excited that they could use those tokens on our site. We didn’t see any other marketplace doing this, so we thought it was a huge opportunity.”
Top-selling Solana NFT project DeGods has generated more than 52,000 SOL worth of trading volume over the last seven days, worth more than $6.9 million as of this writing. Magic Eden currently holds 91.7% of the Solana NFT market share.
Last week, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea teased its long-rumoured Solana integration which will be happening this month.
On the blockchain gaming front, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan announced on Apr 4 that his Solana NFT gaming platform Fractal has raised $35 million to expand its development team and grow its community. Backers of the project included Solana Labs and reputable Web3 VCs such as Andreessen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures and more.
PUBG game maker Krafton has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Solana Labs to build blockchain games on the Solana network.
Recently, web browser Opera integrated Solana and is working with the blockchain to integrate the Opera Wallet.
Solana is the second biggest blockchain for NFTs behind Ethereum as NFT sales on Solana surpassed $1 billion in January. Over the last month, positive news around projects built upon the blockchain has caused the price of Solana’s native token, SOL, to jump from $84 on Mar 6 to $134 today as of this writing.
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