OpenSea is the largest NFT (non-interchangeable Tokens) platform with a turnover of $23.5 billion. In July 2021, the company’s value was estimated at $ 1.5 billion, and in December the capitalization jumped to $13.3 billion.
NFT is an analogue of a digital signature, which makes it easy to establish authorship, and also simplifies the processes of donation and purchase and sale. Tokens have found the greatest use in digital art, and even the Hermitage uses them to sell its own collections.
Initially, OpenSea supported only Ethereum, but the growth of the network’s commission costs
Often exceeding $ 50 led to a slowdown in activity and the emergence of competing sites. As a result, a younger project on the Solana blockchain – Magic Eden – last year twice exceeded OpenSea in terms of the number of transactions with half the audience.
Solana significantly surpasses Ethereum both in transaction processing speed (at a peak of over 50,000 TPS) and in fees (less than a cent). The network is still lagging behind in terms of security and decentralization, which sometimes leads to malfunctions. However, the number of nodes is steadily growing (1,652 at the moment), and with a capitalization of $39.7 billion, Solana challenges Ripple, aiming for sixth place in the overall rating.
Since OpenSea’s ability to conduct cheap transactions directly affects its popularity, the platform recently announced the inclusion of Solana in the list of supported blockchains in April. The addition of Solana as the largest NFT platform will increase demand for SOL, the coin has already risen in price by 16% this week. Solana will become the fourth blockchain on OpenSea, in addition to Ethereum, Polygon and Klaytn.
The addition of Solana will help OpenSea attract more young artists for whom the current costs of creating NFT collections are unaffordable, and will also contribute to maintaining leadership in the market.