NFTs in Solana are experiencing a moment. Data shows Solana NFT miners reached 300,000.
Despite a tepid market for non-fungible tokens, activity is booming around Solana-based NFTs. Data indicates that the number and number of NFTs created by Solana, or NFTs created using its blockchain, has risen to 312,000 as of Sept. 7. This is a substantial increase from the 39,000 recorded on Sept. 4.
The volume of Solana-based NFTs has also increased, reaching $11.5 million across all marketplaces on Sept. 6, the highest level since May. Magic Eden, which was launched in September as a marketplace for Solana NFTs has seen its market share increase from 12% to 36.6% by Sept. 7.
NFT trading in Solana is seeing a lot of activity. This is a positive sign for the wider market. Popular NFT marketplace volumes have not recovered from a sharp drop earlier in the year.
Solanas ecosystem is still growing
Solana-based NFTs are a tiny part of the ecosystem for non-fungible collectibles. The largest projects, such as Bored Apes Yacht Club or Pudgy Penguins, were first created on Ethereum.
Chase Barker, Solana Foundation’s head of the developer ecosystem, said on Twitter that “I recall once upon a while (last year), that some people’ laughed about Solana NFTs.
It’s true. It felt like cold calling–a lot people not taking Solana NFT Space seriously,” Stephen Hess, co-founder of Metaplex, told The Block in an interview by phone.
The low entry barrier has historically meant that lower-quality collections have been able to copy more legitimate projects at a lower cost.
Hess stated, “The last few week we’ve seen an improvement in credibility however.”
He said, “We were able make a compelling pitch about the cost structure: creators can mint 1,000,000 mints at once for 50 SOL,” in reference to the new creator program.
At the moment, Metaplex mints $0.30
Dust Labs, the project behind NFT collection DeGods and NFT collection y00ts, announced earlier in this week a $7m fundraise. also saw $9.6m in secondary sales for its “y00ts mint t00b” collection in September. Dust Labs has Solana Ventures, Jump, and FTX as its backers.
According to Zhuoxun Z Yin, Magic Eden founder Zhuoxun Z, the success of the y00t launch demonstrated the strength of the Solana NFT ecosystem.
He said that “I think people are realizing Solana as an NFT marketplace still despite the bear” in a message to The Block. “It went pretty well, so it’s driving an mini minting/trading wave.”
