OpenSea Closing In on Support for Solana NFTs

OpenSea all but confirmed via tweet Tuesday that Solana non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are coming to its marketplace for digital collectibles.

In a “wen solana?” video teasing the April addition – but withholding an exact date – the company valued at over $13 billion sarcastically revealed “the best kept secret in web3.”

Industry insiders have anticipated this news for much of 2022. In late January, tech blogger Jane Manchun Wong spotted telltale signs that OpenSea was readying support for Solana digital wallets. Even Tuesday, OpenSea’s web code is littered with mentions of the fast and cheap chain.

Solana would become the third layer 1 and fourth blockchain network whose NFTs can trade on OpenSea, after Ethereum, Polygon and Klaytn. Among those, Solana is second only to market-leader Ethereum in all-time NFT sales, per data tracker CryptoSlam.

OpenSea’s expansion could present a challenge to Magic Eden, the leading marketplace for Solana NFTs.

Magic Eden currently dominates Solana NFT sales with over 90% market share in the past week, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard.

Magic Eden’s 2% transaction fee is 50 basis points below OpenSea’s, giving buyers and sellers a slight edge there. Whether that will be enough to stave off the market leader remains to be seen.

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Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.

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