OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, just announced earlier today, April 7th, that it has added support for Solana NFTs.
In its tweet, the company said that Solana will be available starting today, with OpenSea’s initial beta. The company also added that it will collect feedback during the beta in order to improve the Solana experience.
For now, the project has added support for 165 collections, saying that new ones will be added every day. It also invited users to recommend their favorite collections that they wish to see on OpenSea.
Another announcement that referenced the event came from Metaplex—a decentralized protocol combined with an open-source web framework that allows artists, creators, and brands to launch self-hosted NFT storefronts “as easily as creating a website.”
The project said that OpenSea’s beta launch of Solana’s NFTs is a “moment of arrival” for its creators, artists, and game developers – all of whom are working tirelessly to build the ecosystem.
It also said that Metaplex’s Auction House is running beneath the surface. This is an escrow-less commerce protocol that allows for P2P transactions and auctions.
Why is Solana Beta so Important for NFTs?
According to OpenSea’s new Explore Solana page, Solana’s chain offers numerous benefits. Primarily it features extremely fast transaction speeds and very low gas fees, which are measured in fractions of a cent. This makes NFTs far more accessible and affordable.
Some of Solana’s biggest NFT collections have already been made available, including Degenerate Ape Academy, Portals, FRAKT, Monkey Kingdom, Stoned Ape Crew, Mindfolk, and many more that users can explore and purchase.
With this being a beta launch, users should keep in mind that the collection coverage will be limited. However, the full launch—once it arrives—will include a scalable way to expand coverage with the Metaplex collection standard.
SOL Price Ignores the Expansion to OpenSea
Despite the availability of Solana NFTs on the world’s largest NFT store, which will arguably boost the engagement with them, the SOL price’s performance is not very encouraging.
With the crypto market seeing another wave of bearish influence following weeks of growth, SOL has actually crashed to its lowest point in the past seven days, currently sitting just above $114.
Around April 2nd, the price attained its highest point since late January, reaching up to $142. However, the resistance at $140 proved difficult to break.
During this last week, which remained relatively neutral as far as price trends were concerned, SOL kept trying to breach the resistance but failed to do so.
Unfortunately for SOL, the start of this week brought a slight decline, which later turned into a serious price drop. SOL crashed by 10% in the last 24 hours and is heading toward the support at $110.
It is also worth noting that SOLs bottom this year was $80, so there is quite a lot of room for the token to drop if it doesn’t receive continued support.
Regardless of SOL’s performance, the increased accessibility of NFTs and NFT collections represents a significant expansion in cryptocurrency adoption worldwide.
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Speaking of expansion and crypto adoption, you’ll be pleased to learn that Shiba Inu (SHIB) is now available at nearly 2,000 Bitcoin ATMs across the United States.
Thinking of investing in NFTs now that they’re more accessible than ever? Make sure you have a plan to keep your NFTs safe.
