Since the creation of the Solana blockchain, and Solana cryptocurrency in 2017, it has been growing in popularity and the number of ways it can be used.
Solana, abbreviated to SOL on the cryptocurrency exchanges, has become the ninth most valuable crypto on the market. This is higher than similar coins such as Polygon MATIC.
With a 21,000% increase in value in 2021, and a development team behind it based in San Francisco, it’s open source blockchain project is more versatile than Bitcoins and much faster than Ethereums, but can it be used for NFTs?
The Solana cryptocurrency and blockchain can be used to mint, buy, sell and trade NFTs. Not all NFT platforms support Solana NFTs, although all NFTs can be minted using the Solana cryptocurrency and a Solana blockchain programmed smart contract. The most popular Solana NFT platform is Magic Eden.
Although Solana can be used for NFTs, there are some caveats.
Whether Solana can be used to trade in NFTs depends on the blockchain the NFT was minted on.
For example, an NFT created on the Ethereum blockchain can not be resold in Solana.
In this article we will look at how Solana can be used for NFT trading, a top tip guide on the best places to use Solana for NFTs, plus the pros and cons of minting NFTs using the Solana blockchain.
Trading NFTs using Solana
Solana, since its creation in 2017, became one of the breakthrough cryptocurrencies of 2021.
Part of Solana’s success is its ability to efficiently trade NFTs using its open source blockchain.
With a much faster transaction speed, and much lower gas fees, it became the second most traded NFT cryptocurrency, and only behind Ethereum.
In order to use Solana to trade in NFTs, a digital wallet is needed.
Although there are many digital wallets available, the most common for Solana NFT trading is the Phantom Digital Wallet.
Here is a helpful infographic showing the method of using Solana for NFTs:
Solana cryptocurrency (SOL) can be purchased direct through the Phantom wallet. No third party cryptocurrency trading platform such as Binance or Coinbase are necessary.
Once Solana is safely in the wallet it can be connected to an NFT marketplace, such as Magic Eden, or by connecting directly to a website minting Solana NFTs.
The Phantom digital wallet provides a unique ownership address in which any Solana NFT purchases are logged against.
This log, or audit trail, provides full transparency and irrefutable proof of ownership.
Pros and Cons of Solana for NFTs
Although Solana is a great cryptocurrency for trading NFTs, there are some caveats and drawbacks.
Here are some of the pros and cons of using Solana:
Pros
- It can handle 65,000 transactions per second compared with just 30 transactions per second on the Ethereum blockchain
- Gas fees are incredibly low at an average of 3 cents compared to $25 on Ethereum
- There are several Solana NFT marketplaces to choose from
- OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, is steadily opening its doors to Solana NFTs providing access to a much larger pool of buyers
Cons
- Solana is not as widely used as Ethereum for NFTs, and therefore the Solana blockchain has fewer NFTs to buy, and less NFT buyers to sell to
- The largest and biggest NFT launches tend to be on the Ethereum blockchain rather than Solana’s
- The Ethereum 2.0 imminent launch will see volumes of up to 100,000 transactions per second from just 30 transactions per second today, putting an even larger divide between Solana and Ethereum
Solana certainly has some great benefits such as low fees, due to the much higher number of transaction capabilities, which in turn increases supply. Although in order to attract high profile NFT launches it needs to encourage users to move from the dominant Ethereum network over to Solana.
Considering almost all the most popular NFT projects already exist on Ethereum, and therefore cannot be changed – as well as the imminent release of the Ethereum upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 which will increase allow up to 100,000 transactions per second surpassing Solana’s capability by more than 50% – it will need something special and unique.
Best Places to Use Solana for NFT Trading
Despite Solana’s uphill climb to have the largest market share, Solana NFTs are being traded everyday in a thriving ecosystem.
Here are a few popular marketplaces with which to trade Solana NFTs.
Magic Eden
Magic Eden is one of the biggest and most popular Solana NFT marketplaces despite only launching in September 2021.
Despite it being such a young company, it has already surpassed 300,000 customers trading in NFTs via its Solana blockchain interfaced marketplace.
It offers slightly lower transaction fees of 2% than OpenSea at 2.5%, providing a 0.5% saving per NFT transacted.
Solanart
Solanart launched back in 2017, and although it launched considerably early in the NFT space it wasn’t enough to prevent Magic Eden from taking top spot in the Solana space.
That said, Solanart still has an impressive 170,000 users who have traded in NFTs via its platform.
Solanart primarily focused on artists selling their work as NFTs, whereas Magic Eden marketed its platform on the cartoon meme craze that took hold of the NFT industry in 2021.
Its higher 3% transaction fee, compared to Magic Eden’s much lower 2% transaction fee, hasn’t helped increase its user based.
Although a 1% additional fee may not sound much, it could mean thousands of dollars extra in fees if 6 figure Solana NFTs sales start to happen, as they already do on OpenSea.
OpenSea
OpenSea also launched in 2017 but did so with a primary integration and focus on the Ethereum blockchain.
It is the largest NFT marketplace, and by some considerable margin.
In 2021, as market trends saw a rise of Solana and Polygon MATIC NFT purchases, OpenSea began work on maintaining its dominance as the biggest NFT marketplace in the world by including integration for Solana NFTs.
Solana trading on OpenSea is still in its infancy but is expected to grow.
Although Solana can be used for NFTs, it still needs to find a way of maintaining its share of the market and find better ways to entice more NFT creators to use its blockchain.
