Aptos lures away Solana NFT traders and creators – will it last?

Enthusiasm all around Solana The NFT market has been in short supply lately on Crypto Twitter as marketplaces push back on honoring royalties to creators. Trading volume is creeping down, and it might not just be because of bad bear market vibes: rival blockchain network Aptos also looks set to steal the limelight—and means—by some Solana NFT traders.

Aptosthe so-called “Solana killer” backed by $350 million in VC funding, launched its mainnet last week to doom and gloom from crypto watchers, who criticized the supply and distribution of the APT token and argued that the blockchain was technically underwhelming.

But despite all this, NFTs are selling on Aptos, with its top project at the moment—Aptos Monkeys— tops all other NFT pools across both Solana and Ethereum in terms of 24-hour trading volume.

Aptos NFT marketplace To date, Topaz has raised $5.46 million in NFT trading since launching on October 18, based on the current price of APT, Topaz’s pseudonymous founder 0xclickbait told Decrypt. Since launching on Tuesday afternoon, Aptos Monkeys alone has generated more than $2.3 million in trading volume (253,000 APTs), according to data on Topaz. In contrast, the top-selling collection on OpenSea right now is CryptoPunks, generating 559 ETH in the last day, or roughly $800,000.

Trading volume on Topaz “basically doubles every day” 0xclickbait told Decrypt.

Aptos does not yet have NFT data analytics platforms that aggregate public blockchain data, but the numbers provided by Topaz are consistent with the flood of transactions seen in the market so far.

Topaz’s reported trading volume almost matches the Solana NFT market Magical Eden the last day. Magic Eden reports 58,100 SOL worth of NFT trades in the last 24 hours, which comes out to a value of $1.8 million – compared to $1.71 million for Topaz in the same time period.

Other data collected by the analytics platform Dune suggests a mostly downward trading volume trend for Magic Eden in recent days – from approx. 100,700 SOL on Friday which gradually fell to 58,400 SOL on Monday, although the marketplace saw a pop up to almost 79,400 SOL on Tuesday.

Market-wide, data analysis platform Nansen reports that Solana NFT trading volume has fallen 33% over the past 30 days compared to the previous span—2.08 million SOL, down from 3.08 million SOL—with suspected market-manipulating wash trades removed from the data. EthereumThe NFT market, meanwhile, has increased by almost 6% over the same period.

Crypto Twitter is full of examples of Solana traders chatting about jumping into the Aptos room, which some say reminds them of the early days of Solana NFTs. The shift may explain the fluctuations in liquidity in both markets.

Aptos Monkeys has made the biggest splash yet on the nascent blockchain, but pixel-art, flamingo-themed Aptomingos have also moved big numbers and collected about 100,000 APT ($882,000) in trading volume to date. The cheapest available Aptomingo’s NFT is currently listed at 78.5 APT (almost $700).

Over the past 24 hours, Aptos Monkeys have provided significantly more trading volume on Topaz than the top Solana NFT project – DeGod’s spinoff y00ts-has generated on Magic Eden (5,700 SOL, or $177,000).

The changing momentum is also pushing some potential creators away from Solana, with NFT projects – such as Zodiac World, Mogu Dragonzand Aptos Top Sharks– announcing that they are “moving to Aptos” to capitalize on the hype. Meanwhile, existing project Okay Bulls said today that it will transfer to Aptoswhich allows NFT holders to exchange for an Aptos version.

This trend has caused some grumbling among some Solana die-hards on Crypto Twitter, as some remember what happened to Close to protocola platform that uses the same Rust programming language as Solana.

As with Aptos, there was early hype around NFTs on Near, and many Solana traders rushed into the space to try and seize the opportunity – but it didn’t last. Top Near marketplace Paras has under $5,000 in trading volume in the last day, per DappRadar.

It remains to be seen whether Aptos repeats the rapid boom-and-bust cycle or becomes the next Solana, but the early momentum is building. With Bruh Bears and other anticipated coins still on the horizon, traders will no doubt be watching closely to see if Aptos can offer a sustained challenge – especially if Solana NFTs bounce back.