Solana NFT Ecosystem’s Growth in September Rivals Ethereum

Solana kicked off October with an hour-long service outage – the blockchain’s 12th such outage in 2022 – a particularly sour note, especially after a month of strong NFT coins and daily volumes rivaling Ethereum.

Solana’s market share of total trading volume rose from 7% to 24% in the last six weeks, following Delphi Digital.

Solana in September posted higher daily trading volumes than Ethereum. The number of unique buyers increased by 34% month over month, according to data from Dune Analytics.

Ethereum NFT volume may have declined since April, but the newly converted proof-of-stake blockchain remains the top dog when it comes to NFT sales. It houses – by far – the most blue-chip gatherings, including Bored Ape Yacht Club and Crypto Punks.

“One thing to keep in mind is that the USD value is still way higher on Ethereum,” said Blockworks research analyst Sam Martin. “Project creators can launder trades on Solana to artificially pump volume due to low transaction fees, while on Ethereum it will be far more expensive.”

Solana’s trades of less than $200 and lower gas fees have enabled “more interaction and participation” than the Ethereum network, analytics platform Nansen reported.

“Ethereum’s role in the NFT area will gravitate towards stores of value. In contrast, Solana will become, and to some extent already is, the hotbed for trade, newer collections and creators who want to access the global market, Nansen said.

Solana’s “y00ts: mint t00b” project had the highest 30-day trading volume on both OpenSea and Magic Eden. Dust Labs – the company behind Solana’s most valuable NFT collection, the DeGods project – released y00ts in early September. The design reveal has not yet taken place.

y00t mint ran on Metaplex, an NFT protocol for creators on Solana. More than 4 million wallets have held Metaplex NFTs to date, a sphere with similar reach to Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard, according to the company. One million Solana NFTs are minted every 18 days through the Metaplex network.

Solana’s growth may well be linked to the rapid upswing of the entire NFT market, following a late 2021 move that decimated the collective market value of all digital collectibles.

But the idea that NFTs can become “tokens of identity” and foster community — including the especially tight-knit holders of y00ts and Degods — is something worth pursuing for Solana, according to Stephen Hess, former Solana Labs product manager and current Metaplex CEO. .

“When you change your profile picture, you’re signaling your membership to a group,” Hess told Blockworks. “You kind of build your identity online. Zooming out, we see this as the beginning of decentralized social networks.”

While a turnaround may not yet be in the cards, Solana is gaining ground. The proof-of-stake protocol has racked up 9.89 million trades worth $1.1 billion, while Ethereum has recorded 13.38 million cumulative trades worth $16.5 billion, per data from Flipside Crypto.

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