• Solana NFTs saw $295 million in volume during April
• Integration With OpenSea has helped to boost entire ecosystem
• New NFT traders flock to Solana

because of the low entry barriers and gas fees that are almost zero.

• Not Okay Bears Highlights of Solana’s progress

NFTs exploded onto the scene in 2021, with $17 billion in sales throughout the year. So far this year, despite the extreme risk-off environment with assets red across the board, this report from Chainalysis shows that volume in the NFT space is stabilising.

With every indicator pointing to longevity in the space I thought it would interest me to assess where these sales are occurring and whether Ethereum remains the king.

One trend that jumped out quickly was the growth of Solana.

OpenSea

In the brief history of NFTs the majority of volume has been on Ethereum. OpenSea is the original marketplace for Ethereum. However, this is changing. OpenSea has recently merged with Solana. This is a significant moment in the history of Solana NFT collection marketplaces.

Another poignant moment was yesterday’s removal of a derivative collection called Not Okay Bears from OpenSea after objections from Okay Bears collectors. It has always been the opposite – there have been knock-off collections launched on Solana. But, a prominent imitation on Ethereum feels like an important moment for Solana.

Sticking with Okay Bears, they are currently the hottest collection on Solana, trading at a floor price of 222 SOL ($11,500) and with a stout volume of 1.5 million SOL ($77 million) over the last month – and that’s on Magic Eden alone. They have almost the same volume on OpenSea as the previous month and are currently seventh in the leaderboard, with six collections from Ethereum below them.

Okay Bears floor price and volume (in SOL) has been on an upward trend all month

Bored Ape Solana Club

Another poignant case in the world of derivatives is the Bored Ape Solana club (BASC), which is the Solana version for Bored Ape Yacht Club, (BAYC), on Ethereum. This situation is quite different than the Not Okay Bears one in that the derivative collection is more of an homage than a copy. BASC was even verified on OpenSea and saw volume and floor prices rocket shortly thereafter.

Last month, following the chaos of the Otherside launch from Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, I wrote here about how exclusive the Ethereum NFT world had become. As sky-high prices and excessive gas fees prevented ordinary investors from participating, it felt like the Bored Ape Club.

The concentration of wealth within the NFT space was becoming alarmingly high while the centralisation was a real concern. Yuga Labs owns the IP rights for CryptoPunks and the top three collections of OpenSea. They also own the IP rights of CryptoPunks. Not to mention the tweets they made last month that they wanted to create their own blockchain.

Solana allows ordinary investors access to the NFT universe. It has low gas prices and an easy-to-use interface, which helps to break down barriers. To make it more fun, I bought the below Ape at the BASC. The fee I paid was a fraction of what it cost, and the whole process could not have been more different from the extremely exclusive BAYC counterparts on Ethereum.

Instagram and Coinbase

This week, Meta-owned Instagram announced that it will be testing a feature that allows users to use NFTs in their profile photos. Meta confirmed that the initial launch was limited to Ethereum and Polygon but that Solana will be added to the test later. Coinbase also stated that they plan to add Solana to their Ethereum NFT ecosystem once it is fully operational.

Growth

This access for the little guy Solana provides is beginning to catch on. For the same reasons that I purchased my Ape from Solana, more investors choose Solana over Ethereum to start their journey into NFTs. Magic Eden had 9.2 million transactions, compared to 1. 67 million on OpenSea over the past month, according to this report.

It should be noted that the chasm between transactions and sales is distorted largely by bot activity. The growth trends are clear: Solana is growing at a rapid rate, with the floor prices for the main collections rising over the past month, contrary to what is happening on Ethereum.

Perhaps more accurate than transaction count is volume, and according to DappRadar, the Solana NFT market jumped 91% in April, with volume of $295 million. Looking back over the last 30 days from today, the meltdown has reduced the dollar volume, but the SOL volume is up significantly. Indeed, when considering the pullback in the wider market, the fact that volume over the last 30 days across the top 14 marketplaces is $274 million (at the current SOL price of $52) is an extremely bullish sign.

The graph below shows that the bulk of this volume was generated on Magic Eden and OpenSea.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this has been a hugely bullish period in Solana NFTs. Although the crypto market has been turbulent, and the Solana token was not spared, the long-term trajectory of the ecosystem is still upward.

Ethereum simply cannot compete against the nearly-zero entry barriers that Solana provides to NFT investors. With fees of only a fraction per transaction, Solana makes it possible to flip NFTs and play around with different collections. This is impossible on ETH due to the dominance and high prices of the top collections.

However, Ethereum isn’t practical to use unless you are spending a lot of money on an expensive NFT. Ethereum also loses so much gas, making it a blockchain that only the elites can use. Solana is a better choice for the average investor who wants to invest in non-life-changing amounts.

The market is beginning to realize this.