Solana NFTs

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Today we cover:

• 🤷‍♀️ Top NFT collections seem to be down only. What’s going on?

• 💹 Weekly Data insights: We take a look at Solana, the 2nd largest NFT ecosystem

• 🇫🇷 We found the best takes and summaries on ETH CC, if you missed the conference in Paris

• 🙊 Is the most strategy in crypto longing cults?

Market Update — Down Only

There’s not a lot to say about NFTs right now except that they’re just chilling. The Forkast 500 NFT index, which represents top NFT collections across multiple blockchains, is down 2.6% on the week.

A 5-year-old kid could look at the chart and tell you where we’re headed — down. But hey, what goes down must come up, right? So, we're keeping our eyes peeled for that trend reversal.

Here's the weekly scorecard for the top collections:

• Bored Ape Yacht Club: 30.8 ETH (-5.8%)

• Azuki: 4.8 ETH (-19%)

• Mutant Ape Yacht Club: 5.7 ETH (-5.8%)

• Milady: 2.4 ETH (-16%)

• DeGods: 8.3 ETH (-4%)

Solana NFTs

Solana is probably the 2nd largest NFT ecosystem today after Ethereum. Vibrant NFT communities and degen traders have found a home there.

This week, we dive into the Solana scene, especially in the wake of DeGods' departure - once the top dog of Solana collections, now they've packed their bags for Ethereum.

Daily NFT Marketplace Volumes

Let’s get real for a second. Solana NFT marketplace volumes have fallen off a cliff since January this year. Just 6 months ago, ~400,000 SOL was traded daily ($8.5M).

Today, just 35,000 SOL ($790K) was traded.

Market Share of Solana NFT Marketplaces

But every story has its heroes, and in this case, it's Tensor (brown in the above chart). They've been climbing the ranks since February and have now claimed the throne as the top marketplace by trading volume on most days, leaving Magic Eden in the dust.

We talked about Tensor in last week’s newsletter and how it’s gearing up for its Tensorian NFT launch soon.

Unique Wallets & 1st-Time Wallets

Over the past six months, there have been about 342K unique wallets trading NFTs on Solana, with 134K of them being 1st time users. Seems pretty impressive, right? But remember, one user can have multiple wallets, so it's not a direct headcount. Plus, with Solana's almost non-existent fees, setting up a new wallet and moving funds/NFTs around is as easy as pie.

Monthly number of 1st-time Wallets

The monthly chart of first-time wallets shows a trend that's a bit of a downer. The number of newbies in the Solana NFT space is dwindling, hitting its lowest point since 2021.

Amongst the top 5 NFT collections on Solana by trading volume, 4 of them are PFP-type projects and 1 is a utility project (Casino).

Solana has a lot of potential for its tech, with compressed NFTs and executable NFTs. We're just waiting for some innovative team to tap into this goldmine. Until then, it looks like trading volumes and participants might hit a bit of a plateau.

Our Favourite Tweets

🐥 Someone drops a million dollars on a Zombie cryptopunk. He’s buying it for the culture

🐥 “Blue-chip” NFTs aren’t blue chips. The faster you realise this, the better

🐥 OpenSea introduces peer-to-peer trading and why it’s a gamechanger

🐥 Moonbird launches its Mythics collection and people like the art. But what else does it really do?

🐥 The best alpha on the Chinese gaming industry we’ve found

🐥 The most profitable strategy in crypto: longing cults.

🐥 StoryCo allows creators to share in the upside with profit points

🐥 Louis Vuitton continues its foray into NFTS with this digital Speedy 40 VIA bag, which will also be available in a physical version next year.

Best ETH CC Takes

We couldn’t be at ETH CC, so we scoured Twitter to find the best summaries on last week’s conference

Upcoming Mints

🍿 CyberKongz is launching its Genkai Mint on 27 July. 7,000 NFTs will be airdropped to existing holders and 9,000 will be sold at 0.25 ETH each.

(Will be a trading opportunity but…do we really need another 16k NFT supply to hit the market in these conditions?)

🍿 Possibility Spaces by Look Highward, a curated release on Sovrn Art will be dropping on 3 August. Premint sign-up is available.

“An exploration into the vast realms of human imagination through the mind's eye of a machine intelligence. Super HD zoomable AI artworks.”

🍿 Reddit’s next avatar drop: Level Up. It might release later this week. It’ll be a free collection with 150K - 2M supply.

That's it for today folks, see you tomorrow. If you want more, follow us on Twitter (@the_metadata). If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can subscribe with just one-click:

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for educational purposes only. None of this is financial or investment advice. It is not a solicitation to buy or sell any assets. Minting and buying NFTs is risky. Please do your own research.