The founders of one of the world’s largest NFT markets say Solana will overtake the leading altcoin Ethereum as the primary crypto for all NFTs. Next, they explain 3 reasons for this.
Solana is fast catching up with leading altcoin Ethereum
Magic Eden has become the world’s second largest NFT market in less than a year. Just last month, the company raised $159.5 million from tech giants like Sequoia and Greylock. Furthermore, it reached a value of $1.6 billion. A significant part of the platform’s success lies in its forward-thinking bet on Solana.
Solana has rapidly gained popularity over the past few years and has beaten Ethereum’s lead in the NFT market. Magic Eden co-founders Zhuojie ‘Rex’ Zhou and Sidney Zhang explain their thoughts on Solana and why they are so optimistic about its future.
While collecting the awards today, it was not an easy choice when the founders of Magic Eden chose Solana over Ethereum when the company was founded. Most flagship NFT collections like Cryptopunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club use Ethereum. Leading NFT artists like Beeple have sold their artworks exclusively on the Ethereum network. However, Solana is fast catching up with its altcoin rival.
3 reasons why Solana is better than Ethereum
Super fast layer-1 solution
The first reason Zhou and Zhang bet on solana is the speed of execution. To Zhou, the language was like evidence of a super-safe mindset and past consensus algorithms. It also supports 400 millisecond block time and 3000 TPS (transactions per second). This is unrealistic for any other Blockchain, especially an L-1 Blockchain.
To compare this, it is worth noting that Ethereum has a block time of 10 to 12 seconds. In other words, it’s 2,400% to 2,900% slower than Solana. So, it’s doing roughly 10 transactions per second. Cardano, another Solana competitor, has a block time of 10 seconds and 250 TPS.
Speed is essential for a Blockchain network to scale. To put it in perspective, Visa regularly processes 1,700 transactions per second. It also claims to be capable of handling up to 24,000 TPS. The faster Solana can process transactions, the stronger the network and the more attractive it will be for companies looking to adopt a Blockchain strategy for their business.
Low transaction fees
Zhou says Solana’s low gas fees are another reason to be optimistic about the future of blockchain. Gas fees refer to the payment required to transact on any Blockchain. As you follow on Kriptokoin.com, one of the biggest criticisms of Ethereum is the high gas fees. These fees are one of the main reasons investors are starting to look for alternatives like Solana. Zhou says:
I think it’s pretty obvious, people get it. Interacting with blockchain is really low cost. This means that if you look at Magic Eden’s statistics compared to other markets, in terms of number of transactions, it has far more on-chain interactions than any other Blockchain NFT market.
Recently, Bored Ape Yacht Club launched its metaverse, Otherside. In this transaction, over $176 million in gas fees emerged. Individuals say they paid over $14,000 in gas fees to print four NFTs. For comparison, gas costs less than a penny to print an NFT in Magic Eden.
Brilliant consumer experience
Finally, Zhou says the experience of using Solana is ‘faster and brighter’ than Ethereum. Caseem Ward, a Solana NFT owner and Light Node Media consultant, agrees with this assessment. In this context, Ward makes the following statement:
Obtaining Solana NFTs during a sale is always a smooth process. Degenerate Ape Academy was the first LEFT NFT I’ve ever ridden. It was a great pleasure. I paid the mint less than a cent. Instantly got my Degen Ape. I was spared an exorbitant gas fee and long waiting time for my transaction to be confirmed on the Blockchain.
During the Otherside auction, the Ethereum Blockchain suffered an outage due to massive demand to purchase metaverse plots. This has caused many potential investors to miss the chance to invest. However, it’s worth noting that Solana herself has also experienced multiple blackouts.
The future of the altcoin project is bright
One of the factors preventing Solana from taking over the NFT market is the lack of artists currently building on the Solana Blockchain. Many creators choose to list their NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain as there is more money in the Ethereum system than Solana’s. In 2021, the total NFT market was over $41 billion, while the Solana NFT market was under $1 billion. However, Zhang says the status quo is changing rapidly.
He also notes that big celebrities like Zhang, Steve Aoki, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neil have all recently experimented with Solana. The growing interest among celebrities and artists to use Solana only confirms Magic Eden’s mention on the network. Both Zhang and Zhou are confident that Solana’s popularity will continue to grow from here. Zhang sums up his perspective as follows:
Don’t just look at where the disk is today. See where the disk went. The disc for Magic Eden is heading towards Solana.
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