Around the Blockchain | Are Solana NFTs Coming to OpenSea?
Some big news happened on Solana this week. Or maybe it didn’t. A mistake? A leak? An intentional leak to create hype? Read on to find out what the potential news was, and other goings on in the non-ETH NFT community from this past week.
The Fungibles
The new bull run that began last week with the ApeCoin release appears to be continuing in full force. With a few notable exceptions, it was mostly green for the past week.
As per CoinMarketCap, Cardano ($ADA, $1.14) led the way, gaining 27.47% over the past week as of this writing. $SOL also crossed double digit growth, moving up 12.16% to $101.89, marking the first time the token has been over $100 in three weeks. Also well into the green were $WAXP ($0.33, 17.62%), $FLOW ($6.67, 11.09%), $XTZ ($3.69, 10.32%) and $FTM ($1.39, 7.19%).
The only major chains to not show a week-over-week gain were $LUNA ($91.23), which was essentially flat at -0.30%, and $AVAX, which lost 2.65% to drop down to $86.13. With U.S. tax season approaching fast it remains to be seen if that will have any impact on crypto.
This Week in Solana
Is Solana coming to OpenSea? The biggest NFT marketplace by volume this week added SOL as a currency of choice.
Additionally, the site appeared to add Phantom, the most popular Solana-based wallet, as a compatible connection. However, within a day the addition it was gone.
At this point, OpenSea has zero references to Solana, has not announced any plans to add Solana and/or Phantom support to the site, and has not made any public comment with regards to what happened.
This obviously leaves everything open to speculation, which could be planned. More than likely, given this news, at some point Solana-based NFTs will be coming to OpenSea. The update to the site, at least from a back-end perspective, was probably not a mistake but a part of development.
However, it could have been an accidental leak that pushed it live on the site’s front end when it wasn’t yet ready, or it could have been planned as a way to tease users and build excitement. Either option is just as plausible as the other given OpenSea’s silence on the matter.
In Solana NFT minting news, Blocksmith Labs minted out their 4,444 NFT collection this week at 2.2 SOL each. The company, which touts itself as “a team of experienced engineers aiming to solve real problems on Solana," plans its own token, $FORGE, and a stake-to-earn model for it.
Other roadmap items include staking as a service, portfolio analysis tools, bot services, and eventually a Blocksmith DAO. For most of these services, holders of three or more Blocksmith NFTs will have free access. The current floor on MagicEden is 7.2 SOL, as of this writing.
This Week in FLOW
Throwdowns are back. NBA Top Shot this past week announced the change back to the old style of guaranteed rarity packs, and on the heels of that released the Series 3 version of the Throwdowns collection.
The $89 pack consisted of 4 common moments and 1 rare Throwdown moment, and the site sold out all 17,000 packs. Additionally, collectors who had a complete set of Series 1 and/or Series 2 Throwdowns moments were eligible to receive 3 packs in a free airdrop, for a maximum of 6 aidropped packs per user.
In other Dapper news, NFL All Day teased some upcoming news, with an announcement about an announcement to come this week. Expect the rest of the offseason to include pack drops for Weeks 1-12, which have yet to be released, as well as some historic moments.
This Week in Avalanche
Avalanche Summit took place in Barcelona this week and all indications are it was a huge success.
More than 3,500 participants were in attendance at the 5-day event, hearing from over 250 speakers and learning about not just the future of the AVAX network but of crypto, NFTs, and web3 in general.
Additionally, several popular Avalanche-based projects partnered with Lost Worlds to bring exclusive NFTs to those who physically visited various booths. In total, 34 projects brought over 900 unique NFTs, which included many redeemable tokens for merchandise and other prizes.
The event marked the launch of Lost Worlds NFTs, which plans to continue bringing NFTs and other prizes for visiting real world locations and checking in via geo-location.
Crabada, the most popular play-to-earn game on the Avalanche network, continued to see massive growth this week and hit multiple new milestones. The idle mining game hit an all-time high of 5,000 active daily users on Friday, while also reaching over 10,000 active mines, on average.
However, the game also has a steep entry price for interested new users. Crabada has its own marketplace and its own native currency, $TUS, that is earned by playing and the only currency accepted in the marketplace. The floor to buy an adult Crabada for in-game use is, as of this writing, 14,200 $TUS, which, according to the Crabada marketplace, equals $1,812.39 USD.
To purchase an egg is even more pricey at 18,350 $TUS or $2,340.38. Assuming that the game continues to grow and the NFTs continue to appreciate, the investment could be well worth it since it is a yield-producing asset that can later be sold. However, as with anything in this space, there is risk, and the higher the outlay the higher the risk for a game whose assets could depreciate at any time.
Other Blockchain News
Remember WAX? Are you familiar with Sony Electronics? The two teamed up this week for a community giveaway, which is still ongoing.
Sony’s brand new truly wireless earbuds, called the LinkBuds, went on sale this week and to celebrate the company is giving away a pair. Why conduct the giveaway through the blockchain, and WAX specifically?
Because the company also plans to launch an NFT project, of course. Learn more about the upcoming collaboration with J. Demsky to launch Sony’s first NFT series, on the WAX blockchain, by signing up here. The Instant Win game giveaway is also open until 3:00 A.M. Eastern time on Wednesday, March 30th.
