Original title: An Intro to Solana NFTs

Original author: William M. Peaster

Original compilation: Luccy, BlockBeats

Editors note: Writer William M. Peaster wrote an article to introduce the Solana NFT standard and ecosystem. He believes that when it comes to the largest NFT ecosystem in the crypto economy, Solana has joined the ranks of Ethereum and Bitcoin.

William M. Peaster pointed out that although Ethereum will still dominate the NFT field in the next few years, as Solana’s NFT ecosystem seems to have reached escape velocity, it will also become deeper and more sophisticated over time. wide. BlockBeats compiles the original text as follows:

A few months ago, I wrote about how the Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana NFT scene will develop in 2024article。 

Although I have written many articles on the Ethereum NFT ecosystem and the Bitcoin ecosystem, I have not yet made an introductory introduction to the Solana NFT field.

So here’s a quick beginner’s guide that will walk you through the basics about Solana NFT standards, top collections, and how to get started.

Introduction to Solana

Introduction:Like Ethereum, Solana is a smart contract blockchain that facilitates general applications ranging from DeFi to NFT use cases. The fundamental difference between Ethereum and Solana is their design philosophy.

Integral:Ethereum adopts a modular approach to balance its decentralization, security and scalability needs through external DA and L2 scaling solutions. In contrast, Solana uses a holistic approach to all its execution, data, and security needs. There are trade-offs both ways, with Solanas main difference being how it optimizes speed within a single shared global state.

NFT has matured:Due to Solanas architectural choices, the chain is designed to support 1,000 transactions per second (TPS). Additionally, there is no gas price for Solana transactions because the network has not yet introduced usage-based pricing, so each Solana transaction currently has a flat rate cost of 0.000005 SOL. This speed and affordability creates fertile ground for the network’s emerging NFT scene.

Learn about the Solana NFT standard

Just like Ethereum has ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards and Bitcoin has ordinals, Solana also has its own unique NFT standard. If you want to learn more, I recommend Andrew Hong’s “Getting Started with Solana Analysis” seriesPart 3, the basic knowledge is as follows:

• Legacy: Solana’s original NFT standard was developed by creator studio platform Metaplex and built as an extension of the Solana SPL standard, which is loosely similar to Ethereum’s fungible ERC-20 standard. likeClaynosaurz。

• pNFT: Programmable NFT, also developed by the Metaplex team, is a token standard that introduces mandatory royalties, rules, etc. for Solana NFTs. likeSolana Monkey Business。

• cNFT: Compressed NFT leverages Solana’s state compression upgrade to efficiently compress large amounts of data into on-chain storage. This feature enables projects to save significant amounts of minting costs. For example, minting 2 million cNFTs currently requires 1 SOL. likeTensorians。

• xNFT: Executable NFTs are not a token standard per se, but do allow projects to attach applications to their collections. For example, the Backpack team uses the xNFT system to offer the Mad Lads staking program within the Backpack wallet.

Solana NFT Ecosystem

NFT Mainstream: Currently, more than 192 million NFTs have been minted on Solana, making it second only to Polygon and Ethereum in terms of the total number of NFTs created to date.

As of February 2024, Solana has also facilitated approximately $5 billion worth of NFT transaction volume, making it currently the second most active NFT transaction chain after Ethereum.

Top Collectibles: While Solana does not currently have as many major NFT collectibles as Ethereum, it does have its own giants.

The largest collection on the Internet today is Backpacks Mad Lads project. The transaction base price of this project is approximately 206 SOL (approximately US$22,000). It is currently the fourth largest NFT collection by market value, second only to CryptoPunks and Bored Apes on Ethereum. and Pudgy Penguins. In reaching this level, Mad Lads holders have now joined Pudgy Penguins and Bad Kids as airdrop targets for new multi-chain projects on Cosmos.

Other top ranges: While Mad Lads is out of many peoples price range, there are many other ranges on Solana that are less expensive and are gaining considerable traction as well. Some of the current standout series include:

• Tensorians (80.5 SOL floor)

• Claynosaurz (floor price 34.4 SOL floor)

• Degen Ape Academy (floor price 14.4 SOL floor)

• Saga Monkes (floor price 3.9 SOL floor)

• Froganas (floor price 3.7 SOL floor)

Getting Started with Solana NFTs

Collect NFTs

You need to set up a Solana wallet and get someSOLYou need ETH to buy Solana NFTs, just like you need ETH to buy Ethereum NFTs. The easiest way to earn SOL is to purchase it from the cryptocurrency exchange of your choice such as Coinbase and then transfer it to a personal wallet.

As for the choice of wallet, Phantom, Magic Eden Wallet or Backpack are all good choices. Both Phantom and Magic Eden offer multi-chain support, such as Ethereum and Polygon wallets, while Backpack is optimized for an interactive xNFT experience.

Once you have SOL, you can start minting directly from NFTs, such as on Metaplex, and browse Solanas NFT marketplace. The most popular markets today are Tensor and Magic Eden. Here, the purchasing experience will be similar to that on Ethereum: select the NFT you want, click the Buy option, and approve the transaction with your wallet to complete.

In addition, Solana also offers free mint, and NFTs can be collected for free in addition to transaction fees and any related platform fees. For example, one early and popular platform, DRiP, allowed users to collect free, limited-edition pieces from their favorite creators every week.

List NFT

If you want to sell or continue to use Solana NFTs, you can use Tensor or Magic Eden to list the NFTs for sale. Again, the experience will be close to what you are used to on the Ethereum market. Select the NFT you want to sell, click the List option, enter your desired selling parameters, and approve the transaction using your wallet.

Create NFT

If youre interested in creating your own NFTs, consider checking out Metaplex Studio, which releases 1/1, open versions, and collections on Solana. Unlike Zora, Manifold, and Highlight on Ethereum, I personally have not tried Metaplex on the creator side, but it is undoubtedly the leading choice in todays Solana NFT scene.

Summarize

Solana has joined the ranks of Ethereum and Bitcoin when it comes to the largest NFT ecosystem in the crypto economy. To be sure, Ethereums NFT scene is deeper and broader, especially if you count L2, and has a more diverse and richer niche ranging from concept art to real-world assets. However, Solanas NFT ecosystem seems to have reached escape velocity, so it will also become deeper and wider over time.

So what happens next? In my opinion, the most likely scenario for the next few years is that Ethereum remains dominant in the NFT space, but all major currencies, including Bitcoin, Solana, and even Cosmos, experience significant growth in NFTs at the same time. That said, I think its worth trying all of these networks now to be prepared for whats to come!

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