One blockchain that recently outperformed the whole crypto market despite the overall massive drops is Solana. Jumping from 1,50 € at the start of the year to a price of now 150 € reflects the potential that people see in the blockchain.
With gas prices becoming almost unbearable for NFTs on Ethereum, Solana users benefit from low gas prices and an ultra-fast transaction speed. With many users making the switch the NFT market for Solana becomes more and more popular.
You can buy Solana on many Exchanges, for example Binance (get 10% off).
Project Research
Now when it comes to buying NFTs the most important step is always proper research. With the recent hype many new projects emerged, but statistically most of them will fail. So finding the right project can be a difficult process, especially for a blockchain like Solana that is relatively new in the NFT space. Before going to the marketplaces I suggest checking out Solanium, where you can find a lot of helpful information and statistics to get you started.
NFT marketplaces
For a full list of NFT marketplaces, including platforms that are based on Sonala refer to my full marketplace list. The biggest benefits for all Solana marketplaces are the low gas fees for the user and the fast transaction speeds, but what really defines up a good marketplace are the projects it hosts.
Solanart.io
Solanart.io is an NFT platform currently in beta. While it offers a very limited amount of collections so far, it makes up for it with helpful statistics to each project. So if you are interested in floor prices, volume etc. this marketplace is a good start.
Featured projects
Solanart is hosting a great portion of the biggest NFT projects on the Solana blockchain right now:
Degenerate Ape Academy
Aurory
Abstratica
Thug Birdz
SolPunks
Wallets
Solanart offers a variety of supported wallets, making it a great option if you already set up a Solana wallet that is on the list.
Sollet.io
Sollet Extension
Phantom
Solflare
digitaleyes.market
DigitalEyes is a Solana marketplace, currently in the alpha stage. It focuses on verified collections only, including many of the most famous projects. In general the search function is rather limited, so if you are searching for a specific type of NFT this is probably not the right marketplace for you. However if you want to get to know some of the famous Solana projects you should check them out.
Featured projects
Digitaleyes is hosting, among other projects, the following NFT collections:
Degenerate Ape Academy
Solarians
Abstratica
Thug Birdz
Solana Monkey Business
Wallets
Sollet
Solong
Phantom
Solflare
Solsea.io
Solsea.io is the first NFT marketplace to enable their sellers to include licences when minting an artwork on their website. This means you may not only sell the ownership of your digital work but you can also specify how the buyer may use your work. For example a private-use licence allows the owner of the NFT to only use it for private purposes, whereas a commercial licence would allow the buyer to distribute your work freely.
Solseas team also verifies collections. After applying for verification and getting accepted, the collection will be marked with a blue checkmark.
Featured projects
Solsea is a relatively new marketplace and therefore still lacks behind a little bit on the project side, however there are still some known gems you can find and a lot more (yet) unknown collections to explore. The most well known NFT projects right now include:
Flippies
Degenerate Ape Academy
Crypto Idolz
Wallets
Phantom
Sollet
Magic Eden
Magic Eden calls itself the “leading NFT marketplace on Solana”. They offer options for reselling individual NFTs as well as for listing and minting entire collections through their Launchpad.
Magic Eden is currently a curated marketplace, meaning you have to go through an application process, in order to list or mint your collection. Being curated however also has the advantage of having control over the content that will be listed, resulting in higher quality collections.
Some of the best features Magic Eden has to offer include auctions, collection stats, filtering for prices or collection traits and even a browser game called “Mini royal”. The game is a homage to the popular Battle Royal games (Fortnite, COD Warzone, etc.), however in-game items like skins can be traded as NFTs. While Mini royal is still in early development, you can check out more NFT games here.
Overall Magic Eden feels like a very complete marketplace and reminiscent of the most popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Featured projects
Magic Eden both features new and creative projects, as well as derivatives of other popular projects (e.g. Bored Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Solana Club). These derivative collections are labeled accordingly, so every buyer can make their own decision if they want to invest in these NFTs. Nevertheless Magic Eden features a lot of the most popular projects on Solana right now:
Shadowy Super Coder DAO
Degenerate Ape Academy
GGSG: Galactic Geckos
Thugbirdz
Baby Ape Social Club
Wallets
Phantom
Slope
Solflare
Conclusion & Comparison
Solana is still one of the newer players in the NFT space. However with a rapidly growing community the selection of marketplaces and their features will grow too. The platforms featured in this article already announced some great plans to improve the user-experience and get the most out of the Solana blockchain for NFTs.
If you want to compare these marketplaces in terms of commision, royalties and more, check out this NFT marketplace list. For now these are the main advantages and disadvantages of Solanart, Digitaleyes, Solea and Magic Eden:
Solanart.io
✓ Many known projects
✓ Low fees
✗ Limited search options
✗ Application needed
Digitaleyes.market
✓ Many known projects
✓ Great wallet support
✓ Low fees
✗ Confusing layout
✗ Limited search options
Solea.io
✓ Clean layout
✓ On-chain licensing
✓ Low fees
✗ Still limited amount of projects/ NFTs
Magic Eden
✓ Great wallet support
✓ Most advanced features
✓ Low fees
✓ Many known projects
✗ Application needed