Solana’s NFTs Boom: Best NFT Projects on Solana

Update 5 Jan 2024 • Reading Time 7 Minute

Reading Time: 7 minutes

We recognize several popular NFTs, such as Bored Ape Yacht, Cryptopunk, and Azuki, that have dominated the market in recent years. We are witnessing a resurgence of NFTs, but this time through projects on the Solana blockchain, such as Mad Lads, Tensorian, and Solpunks. In this article, we’ll dive deeper into the development of NFT on Solana and explore the projects leading the way in this growth.

Article Summary

⬆️ Over the past three months, NFT trading volume on Solana has surged by nearly 500%, propelled by projects like Mad Lads and Tensorians.
🌉 In November 2023, over 4 million US dollars was bridged from Ethereum to Solana. It shows a shift in interest for NFT traders towards the Solana NFT ecosystem.
🖼️ Several Solana NFT projects, including Mad Lads, Quekz, Tensorians, Claynosaurz, and Solpunks, have seen remarkable increases in value.
🏃 Scalability and low fees on the Solana blockchain have played pivotal roles in the heightened activity on the network.

NFT Development on Solana

NFT volumes on Solana increased by almost 500% in the last three months! The surge in volume was driven by NFT collections such as Mad Lads and Tensorians, which briefly made Solana the largest chain by NFT trading volume in 7 days.

Even in November 2023, over 4 million US dollars was bridged from ETH to SOL. NFTs on Solana were starting to attract the attention of NFT traders on the Ethereum network.

In addition, Magic Eden, a popular NFT marketplace on Solana, announced the launch of the Magic Eden Wallet (beta version) in early December 2023. This wallet offers exciting features that make the NFT transaction experience better.

With several ecosystem developments including NFT development and increasing adoption by a wide range of users, Solana is proving it can ride out the impact of the FTX Exchange crash. Besides, global macroeconomic conditions are moving away from rising interest rates and investors are anticipating Bitcoin and Ether spot ETFs, making investors perhaps more open to risk.

Scalability and low fees on the Solana blockchain have been important factors in the increased activity on this network. As we know, Solana can process up to 65,000 TPS.

On-chain data shows a significant increase in Solana’s DeFi and NFT sectors. NFT, which is often said to be worthless, is now showing its value again.

The rise in some of Solana’s NFT projects, such as Mad Lads, Quekz, and Solpunks, could spark further interest from collectors and investors. As of December 21, 2023, Mad Lads NFTs rose by more than 43% in the last 24 hours. Even in the past month, other NFT projects, such as Quekz’s new pixel-art PFP, rose over 713%, and Solpunks increased by 400%. However, in early January the trading volume saw a correction as the crypto market conditions fluctuated.

Here are some of the NFT projects on Solana that have caught the attention of the NFT community.

1. Mad Lads

Mad Lads are PFP collection of 10,000 NFTs: 8,682 male and 968 female characters. At its launch on April 20, 2023, each NFT was minted at 6,9 SOL. The collection’s aesthetic includes a variety of human (or humanoid) PFPs illustrated with clothing, weapons, unique accessories, and rare biological attributes that depict characters, robots, and undead.

Also read: PFPS: The Most Popular NFT Category.

As of January 5, 2023, Mad Lads’ floor price was 176 SOL, equivalent to 17,902 US dollars. In 24 hours, Mad Lads have risen 14% with a trading volume of 7,166 SOL or 727,033 US dollars.

Mad Lads were developed by the Solana framework development company, Coral. Coral is also known for its product Backpack, an all-in-one wallet application within the Solana ecosystem.

Mad Lads stand out due to its distinctive launch method. The project was exclusively introduced through the Backpack wallet app. To buy or engage in activities related to Mad Lads, users are required to utilize the Backpack platform.

It is considered a creative way to strengthen Backpack’s position in the Solana ecosystem. The wallet is built for “executable NFTs” (xNFTs). xNFTs are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) embedded with executable programming scripts.

Solana blockchain co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal even joined the Mad Lads as NFT collectors. They even changed their Twitter profile picture to support this growing project.

2. Tensorians

Tensor is an NFT marketplace designed for professional NFT traders and degens in the Solana ecosystem. Tensor has an NFT collection called Tensorians. The NFT community is buzzing about the possibility of a Tensor token airdrop. Tensorians NFT holders are predicted to get more Tensor token airdrops in the future.

Also, read the article about Blur, an NFT marketplace on Ethereum for professional NFT traders.

Tensor uses the new NFT minting mechanism in Solana (compressed NFT) to create 100,000+ NFTs at low cost.

Tensorians NFTs are PFP collections with pixel images consisting of 10,000 NFTs. Developed by Tensor Labs, the Tensorians’ artwork is inspired by classic video games. In early December 2023, Tensorians became the most traded NFT project, with over 4 million US dollars in sales.

The Tensorians NFTs were released in September 2023. Tensorians have a floor price of 110 SOL or approximately 11,070 US dollars, with a total daily volume of 8,860 SOL or 891,656 US dollars, a 58% increase.

Tensorians NFT holders have the following benefits:

Exclusive access to Tensorian events and experiences.
Early access to new features such as Swapsorian, Staking, and others.
Collaboration opportunities with Tensor Labs and other artists.
Voting rights in the future of the Tensorians NFT ecosystem.

The future of Tensorians NFT is full of exciting possibilities. Tensor Labs is committed to expanding the Tensorians NFT ecosystem by introducing new characters, storylines, and interactive experiences. Additionally, the team is exploring the integration of Tensorians NFT into the metaverse to create a seamless transition from the digital realm to immersive virtual worlds.

3. Quekz

Quekz is an NFT collection on Solana featuring pixel artwork of duck characters (quekz), and it consists of 4,500 NFTs. This collection has 18 types of ducks based on colors such as aqua, dark blue, gradient gold, solana, and others.

This collection is also equipped with several traits that can determine the collection’s rarity, such as background, clothing, duck bill, and others. Several accessories also decorate the Quekz collection, such as eye patches, angel wings, gold chains, etc.

Data from Crypto Slam shows that in the last 30 days, trading of these NFTs increased by 122%, with total sales of 5,973,124 US dollars! Quekz’s floor price currently stands at 25,5 SOL or 2,566 US dollars, with a 24-hour trading volume of 37,664 US dollars, up 3% from the previous day.

4. Claynosaurz

Source: Claynosaurz

Claynosaurz is an NFT collection featuring 3D animated works of dinosaur characters consisting of 10,222 NFTs. Launched in November 2022, the collection features seven Clayno species: Rex, Trice, Stego, Ankylo, Bronto, Raptor, and Dactyl.

Claynosaurz offers an exciting NFT collection experience. Apart from having stories and characters in each collection, you can create your NFTs by combining multiple items. Moreover, NFT holders can also access the Claynosaurz community, collaborate with artists, and attend Claynosaurz IRL events.

The project was initiated in 2021 by Danial Cabral and Nicholas Cabana, who are experienced in the animation world. Then, the project was developed by a team with experience in creative industries such as Sony, Disney, Dreamworks, Ubisoft, Netflix, Warner Bros, Marvel, Industrial Light & Magic, and others.

At the time of writing, the floor price of the Claynosaurz NFT stands at 35,7 SOL or approximately 3,593 US dollars. In 24 hours, this NFT increased 36% with a trading volume of 6.581.616 US dollars.

5. Solana Punks (Solpunks)

Solana Punks are NFT collection consisting of 10,000 NFTs. These NFTs have the same attributes as OG CryptoPunks on Ethereum. The difference between Solana Punks and Cryptopunks is Solana’s gradient background and the coding language.

According to Solpunks official website, Solpunks are one of the earliest NFTs minted on the Solana blockchain in May 2021. After the minting process was completed in June 2023, Solpunks OG began trading over the OTC on Telegram. It was because there was no NFT marketplace on Solana at the time.

The first NFT marketplace on Solana to trade Solpunks collectibles is Solanart. The same team developed both Solanart and Solpunks as blockchain products. However, the community is currently developing the Solpunks project entirely, utilizing a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) system.

Solpunks have a lower floor price than the previously mentioned NFT collections, 3 SOL or 305 US dollars. However, Solpunks sales in the last 30 days increased by 55% to reach 294,215 US dollars with 4.527 NFT owners.

Conclusion

Over the past three months, the Solana NFT development ecosystem witnessed a remarkable surge, experiencing an almost 500% increase in trading volume. Leading projects like Mad Lads and Tensorians played pivotal roles in driving this growth.

The expansion of NFT development projects on Solana remains robust, displaying a notable increase. This ongoing growth further solidifies Solana’s standing in the NFT ecosystem, capturing the interest of collectors and investors through innovative and diverse projects.