Solana Supporting NFTs: Everything You Need To Know

If you can’t beat them, join them – news that Opensea was adding support for NFTs on Solana made waves when it first dropped.

Was this yet another sign that Solana had made it, a breakthrough in Solana’s ongoing war with the other Ethereum-killer L1’s?

What does it say about NFTs? Have users finally had enough with Ethereum’s murderous gas fees?

Or will Solana have to fight to prove itself – again?

All this and more in our analysis of the biggest recent news in SOL NFTs.

Read on!

Opensea – still the biggest fish (and it’s not even close)

Getting an exact read on Opensea’s market share is tricky, but one thing’s for sure:

It’s a lot.

Like, upwards of 80%.

And in terms of attention, it’s probably even higher than that.

The Solana integration is just one example. There are other Solana NFT marketplaces, but one word of Opensea’s involvement, and all attention shifted.

That might seem unfair, but Opensea’s got the largest market share and all of the “greatest hits” of the young NFT world. CryptoPunks, BAYC, Mutant Apes, World of Women – they’re all Ethereum-based and available on Opensea.

Integrating Opensea and Solana isn’t just about adding a nice bit of functionality to an already-useful tool. Instead, think of Opensea as the primary access point for the NFT world – and it just swung open for Solana.

More NFTs, new use cases

Nothing on Solana currently can compete with the big names of Ethereum NFTs. But that could change, and the increasing volume of NFTs on Solana is one good indication.

As it stands, Solana is solidly in second place in daily NFT transaction volume. It’s too early to see if the Opensea integration leads to a significant and permanent boost – it’ll take a few months to see.

An increasing variety of use cases is another good indicator. Want an example? Take a look at the Coachella NFT golden ticket – launched on the Solana chain. NFT use cases are nearly as varied as the NFTs themselves, and sports/entertainment is just one of many possibilities. It’s interesting to see how many of these new use cases adopt Solana instead of Ethereum as their native chain moving forward.

ETH vs SOL – redux

It’s impossible to talk about Solana and Opensea without coming back around to the idea of SOL as the “Ethereum-killer.” On the surface, the fight isn’t close, at least not when it comes to NFTs.

But there are two questions worth asking:

1. Will this create added competition for Ethereum going forward?
2. How will this impact Solana – and the price of SOL?

First things first. Ethereum isn’t going to see its market dominance vanish overnight. The death of Ethereum, if it happens at all, is going to play out over months and years.

With that said, the Solana/Opensea integration shows that NFT stage one is over. The early days of dominance by a handful of collections on one marketplace are coming to an end. With new projects on new chains, the NFT world is just starting to move beyond ETH alone.

That can only be a good thing from the development standpoint. But what about price?

ETH currently holds about 20% of the total crypto market cap; SOL holds about 1.8%. Price-wise, ETH currently trades at roughly $2800, with SOL right at $100.

These aren’t looking great for the SOL vs. ETH competition.

Dig a bit deeper, and there are some interesting insights. 

The Opensea news led, as one would expect, to a quick boost in price. That was followed by the inevitable dip. But since then, SOL has held steady, avoiding much of the slog that has pulled the broader crypto market – including ETH – down dramatically over the past month.

What’s the takeaway?

Solana isn’t an overnight ETH-killer. That’s ok, because no one is! But the Opensea integration demonstrates the expansion of the NFT world while also positioning Solana better for the long haul. And it appears to have given SOlana some resilience against the current market headwinds.

The whole SOL vs. ETH conversation might just be missing the point. We’re asking SOlana to prove itself again, when so far it has passed every test.

Jump on in, Solana!

The water’s warm.