Hey y’all, it’s me again. Last week’s topic was a bit more heavy and serious, so this week I wanted to write about something more fun and more people would care about. NFTs! And specifically, Solana’s NFT market. If you still don’t know what NFTs are, seriously what have you been doing with your life? Even my grandpa knows what NFTs are, get your shit together will ya?
Now, in the spirit of keeping things spicy, I wanna try something new. This week’s content won’t be an analysis on just one specific project, but instead will be on various NFT collections that currently exist on Solana. And what I’ll be doing is judging them, aka my favourite pastime. So if you want to be entertained but also learn a thing or two about the current NFT market, just keep reading!
I feel like I need to clarify that I am by no means an expert, nor do I position myself to be one in every piece of content I write. I’m obviously still learning as I go and everything I say are just opinions of my own. As usual, this is not financial advice but only educational content. Please don’t be dumb and always DYOR on any crypto projects.
Table of Contents
1. Summary
2. Industry Trend
3. Solana Summer
4. My 3 picks
5. The Value of NFTs
6. Concluding Thoughts
Part 1. Summary
It’s kinda hard to come up with a TL;DR for this one. But I still did. For you.
- Compared to the exclusivity back then, the NFT scene now is way more accessible to the masses.
- More users are noticing Solana, and recognizing its abilities. In comparison to Ethereum, its speed and costs onboard more retail users.
- My 1st NFT pick is Enviro, a customizable art gallery where you can display NFT artworks. I’m bullish because it focuses on graphics quality to stand out from competitors, the team is working hard, achieving massive growth and doing a brilliant job communicating with the community.
- My 2nd NFT pick is Chillchat, a pixel art metaverse made entirely by the players. I’m bullish on it because the art is cute as fuck, I would personally wanna play the game and the fact that you can design your own NFTs to play is something pretty innovative.
- My 3rd NFT pick is BoneWorld, a collection of 10,000 generative 3D bone avatars that can be integrated into other metaverses. I’m bullish because the NFT utilities are unlike anything I’ve seen before, the quality of artwork is high, and the team is super dedicated.
- I really encourage you to look at floor prices, volumes, listing %, unique holders before buying into existing collections. For upcoming drops, check who’s talking about them, what the team is like, the ambitions, the strategies.
Part 2. Industry Trend
NFTs were all the rage in 2021, the growth was incomparable to previous years. NFT transactions generated a total of almost $14B in 2021, and that’s only counting the transactions that happened on Ethereum. Impressive shit.
NFT market was quiet in the first half of 2021, people (mainly wallstreet boomers) believed they were just a momentary hype and many big name corporation continued to shit on crypto/NFTs. Initially, it was a space where power players could flaunt their crypto wealth and everyone else watched with jealousy. Remember the time when crypto billionaires bought CryptoPunks at insanely high floor prices just to flaunt?
The market scene has evolved vastly, and for the better too. We are seeing more and more retail users participating in the sale of NFTs. Compared to the exclusivity back then, the NFT scene now is way more accessible to the masses. The non-crypto public are more accepting, big name brands are starting to embrace NFTs (even if it’s only for cashgrab lol). The space has become more welcoming as independent artists can release their own art collections at low starting prices. Just look at the numbers, monthly NFT sales grew 41x from the start of the year till the end of the year. Again, impressive shit.
Now, let’s talk trends. If you want me to summarize the top NFT trend in just one word, it’s definitely “PFP”. With the success of CryptoPunks and BAYC, the current market is flooded with similar pixelated icon series and primate-based icon series. A lot of these NFT collections are 1 of X collectibles that feature randomly generated attributes that give users similar-themed NFTs with slight differences. Whoever started this (CryptoPunks?) is genius. Seriously, kudos. My only beef with it is with my shitty luck I always end up minting the ugliest combo ever (All love to my NFT babies tho).
One of Solana’s most popular NFT collection is arguably Degenerate Ape Academy. During its launch back in August 2021, it sold out in a frenzy and led to a surge of $SOL. It’s 24H trading volume during its initial launch days has surpassed the top NFTs on Ethereum; drastically outperforming SolPunk’s ~$700K.
This, brings me to Solana Summer.
Part 3. Solana Summer
$SOL soared to $74.08 on Aug 17th 2021, recording more than 2x growth since the start of August. One of the participating catalysts is the launch of Degenerate Ape Academy, which sold out in just 8 minutes.
Ethereum’s biggest problem is high gas fees and long confirmation time. In comparison, Solana is extremely fast and cheap. More users are noticing Solana, and recognizing its abilities.
Here’s an example to put this into perspective with numbers, for all you math geeks out there. CyberKongz launched on Ethereum on Aug 15th 2021 and sparked a gas war during their minting process. It burned 1433 ETH total and gas for a transaction reached 1.8K gwei (which was around ~$1.5K during that time).
NFT traders lose capital from high transaction fees on Ethereum and are looking for faster and cheaper options. Solana shows huge potential to become the go-to market for NFTs. The biggest advantage I would say, is that the network features incentivize NFT traders, and in turn attract retail users.
Now, I’m not here to just shill Solana like Bankless does with Ethereum. Obviously, Solana is still in its early ugly-preteen-going-through-puberty stage. But hey, the overall NFT experience is just as shitty. We’re in this together. Solana has terrible UI and storefront, and Ethereum has gas fees that will bankrupt you. My main takeaway from this though, is that one of these problems is easily solvable.
Part 4. My 3 Picks
After a quick browse on Solana NFT marketplaces like Solanart and Solsea, I gotta say I’m a bit disappointed. Some of the top trading NFT collections with ridiculously high floor prices are really shitty. Copycat projects that are so obviously just trying to ride off the back of successful projects and do a quick cashgrab. Like, Bored Ape Solana Club? Solana Doodle Apes? Solana Zombie Business? C’mon really, what is this shit?
To be completely honest, I kinda get why Solana gets so much hate when it comes to NFTs. A lot of the NFT projects on here are, in Joey Tribbiani’s words — abysmal. But, that’s not to say that there aren’t hidden gems. I’ve picked out 3 NFT projects on Solana that are kinda under the radar right now that I personally would want to buy and think have great potential. I evaluate the projects based on the following criteria: art, utility, community, and team. Again, I feel the need to reiterate that this is absolutely not financial advice nor am I affiliated with these projects in any way. Now, on to the main program!
Enviro
Up first, we have Enviro. This one is a little different than your average PFP collections. Enviro is actually a collection under Parametrise, a team of artists, designers, and architects that created multiple NFT collections.
Existing as NFTs, Enviro is a customizable art gallery where you can display NFT artworks. It utilizes gaming-grade graphics like high res 3D and adjustable lighting to create a fully immersive gallery space. What Enviro is selling is what they call enviroPASS NFTs. The enviroPASS NFT will act as a preorder token to be redeemed for the actual Enviro NFT when it launches in Q1/Q2 2022 on a 1:1 basis.
Enviro itself is an NFT based on the Solana blockchain but has cross-chain capability and will be able to display all NFTs from any chain. Some of the most notable features of Enviro includes light customization, professional photographic tools, motion video tools, background music integration, etc.
Okay, now that you kinda get what Enviro is and what they want to do, here’s why I think Enviro has massive potential. Let’s start with the art part of my 4 criteria. Since Enviro isn’t a PFP project, you can’t really evaluate its art in the general sense. What I can say about why Enviro’s art stands out is its graphics quality. One of the expected core demographics of the metaverse are video game players, and they’re usually accustomed to and expect higher visual graphics. Unfortunately, many projects have such large ambitions that would take years to achieve. I think you know who I’m talking about right? *wink*
Enviro is specializing in creating customizable rooms that only serve one specific purpose — to exhibit an owner’s NFT artworks. This is a much more manageable goal in a shorter timeframe. Basically, you can actually see the end product sooner. In my point of view, what differentiates Enviro from other metaverse spaces like The Sandbox, or Cryptovoxels, is that the graphics are much much better. Like I mentioned before, it uses gaming quality graphics (Unreal Engine 5) that simulates a realistic depiction of the lighting in real life. Noice!
Utility
Enviro NFTs grant a greater sense of ownership, you own your enviro with all of its customizations and features that will eventually evolve to on-chain save states implementation. Since NFTs prove true ownership, it provides security as only the owner’s wallet can access all the master controls. The technology behind Enviro means being able to read other NFTs in the same ecosystem easily, this includes selling and transferring to other users. Enviro integrates $PRMS as its utility token within the ecosystem to facilitate royalties and revenues to content creators. Yay to creator economy! Lastly, also what I think the current metaverse/NFT lacks the most — interoperability. There are so many metaverses, so many chains, so many NFTs, why can’t we figure out a way for all of these to be able to interact with each other? Enviro’s core concept is to let everyone participate in the NFT space. All NFTs in the future should have metaverse integration functions and that should all be linked via interconnectedness (Is this even a real word?).
Community
Enviro’s social media platforms have quite a decent user base, with 14.7K Twitter followers and 18K Discord members. They are very active on Twitter, posting sneak peeks, new tech, and partnerships. This is always a good sign! Their Discord is also buzzin’, the community is very vocal and active. They have an ama-questions channel and an ideas-and-feedback channel that is constantly filled with Discord users interacting and chatting with each other.
Team
Their team is semi-doxxed, which I think is quite smart. I get that not everyone wants to reveal who they are, post their real names and pictures (like me, lol). However at the same time, most people feel safer when they get involved in a project where they know who the founders are. Something about less chance of getting rug-pulled, or someone to be held accountable if it does happen. Its founder and designer Ehsan is fully doxxed and has expertise with 3D architectural design. The entire team is also very vocal and active in their social channels, constantly providing updates and being transparent with the community.
EnviroPASS NFTs are currently listed on many platforms like Solanart, Magic Eden, etc. Its floor price for a Tier 01 NFT is 4.5 SOL, Tier 02 NFT is listed at 11.95 SOL, and Tier 03 NFT is listed at 24 SOL. Overall, I’m bullish on it because the team is working hard, achieving massive growth and doing a brilliant job communicating with the community.
Chillchat
My 2nd pick is a project called Chillchat, who deems itself as a Create to Earn Discord 3.0. Ambitious. Chillchat is a pixel art metaverse made entirely by the players. In other words, you can create and mint characters, pets, and even worlds pixel by pixel and interact with other NFTs.
Chillchat has its own integrated Create-to-Mint tool that allows users to directly create within its browser. Once created, these new pixelated NFTs can be listed and traded on the secondary marketplace in or outside the Chillchat metaverse. Or you can create your own world with its visual node scripting. Players can create anything from RPG games to simple obstacle courses without prior coding knowledge. Imagine building P2E into your worlds to earn from players and reward players for playing.
Art
I’ll admit that Chillchat first caught my eye because I thought it was cute as fuck. Even their website and whitepaper are cute as fuck, I’m a sucker for tiny details. I would argue that the art is the most important aspect when it comes to buying NFTs. You are essentially paying for the artwork. Would you be happy to pay X amount of ETH or SOL for the NFT purely for the artwork? If yes, then buy away! If the NFT happens to have additional benefits or utilities then that’s even better. But the bottom line for me is, if the project turns out to be shit, would I still be happy that I paid whatever amount for the NFT?
The origins (what they’re calling the 1,500 NFTs for sale) are animated pixelated little creatures that cost 2 SOL per NFT. They’re animated, I repeat. Just look how cute they are. These 1,500 unique characters (not randomly generated with similar parts btw) are early users who can help build Chillchat’s metaverse. Origins will be able to create and mint Gen 2 NFTs that can continue the lineage to mint Gen 3 NFTs, you get the gist. Essentially, how cool (or “rare”) your NFT is, depends on your own creativity and artistic eye. Players also have the opportunity to bring external NFT projects into Chillchat by creating the character in pixel form — interoperability!
Utility
By acquiring an Origins, you are basically the first builders of Chillchat. The project has integrated its own token $CHILLING, an in-game currency used to build whatever you want. Just like The Sandbox, there are worlds within Chillchat for sale. What’s cool about the worlds in Chillchat is that although they are confined to a set size (500x500 in total), creators can add levels to their worlds to gain access to more space without purchasing more worlds. An initial auction of 50,000 Worlds will be offered after launch with players able to bid with $CHILLING. There is also a working demo of the game in iOS already!
Community
Chillchat has 12.5K Twitter followers and 22.2K Discord members. What I appreciate is that they have a whitepaper-ama channel on Discord. Pre-launch projects are often making tweaks and adjustments to their project specifications, so having a channel like this is a way for the team to communicate with the community more efficiently. Chillchat also works with other Solana NFT projects by integrating their NFTs into its community. This is something I think is super important. Collaborations over competition. Make friends not war!
Team
Their team is fully doxxed! They also have quite a few female members, which I think is pretty rare in the space so this is really cool. The core team is also very active in their Discord, especially in the whitepaper-ama channel. This is amazing as the community can get first-hand updates from the team.
Chillchat NFTs will be available to mint on Magic Eden launchpad on Jan 21st. The 1,500 NFTs are 1 of 1 and will cost 2 SOL each. Whitelist mint will start at 8pm UTC, and public mint will start at 10pm UTC. Again, I’m bullish on it because the art is cute as fuck, I would personally wanna play the game and the fact that you can design your own NFTs to play is something pretty innovative.
BoneWorld
Last but certainly not least, I give you my 3rd and final pick, BoneWorld. BoneWorld is a collection of 10,000 generative 3D bone avatars called Skellies. Finally, I picked a PFP project!
What BoneWorld wants to do, is different than what most metaverse/NFT projects out there are trying to do. Instead of creating their own metaverse from scratch and having only their NFTs exist in there, BoneWorld is integrating its NFTs into many other metaverses. Their goal is to have one avatar to build, destroy, and explore all other metaverses.
In addition to their 10K OG Skellies, they also have a pet companion NFT called Spiders. The Spiders are used for internal breeding to get a rare spider, or to obtain special thematic NFTs.
BoneWorld team has made it their mission to focus on creating IP for others to use in their games. In the founder Aleksey’s words, “I believe this nft space is great because everyone can focus on what they enjoy and are good at and integrate it with each other. If you want to make a fighting or adventure game, you can use our skellies as content in it.” They are very open about the direction they wanna go, and welcome all other projects to integrate their FBX files into their metaverse experiences.
One of the super cool things about BoneWorld NFTs is that they are 3D rigged FBX characters. Every holder will receive FBX files of their Skellies. These are full body Skellies which you can load into various games and use them as your avatars there.
Art
BoneWorld NFTs are a refreshing sight after scrolling through Magic Eden, Solanart, and Solsea and seeing the same bullshit copypasta/fiverr collections. They literally pop at your eyes and make you wanna stop and take a look. These NFTs are super polished, they don’t look like something a 5 year-old could’ve made in MS Paint. Not to mention, they look like they were created with so much care and such attention to detail since it’s a renderable 3D avatar. I’m no Picasso but I’m impressed. The design style is also something that the NFT space hasn’t seen much lately. With all the vibrant graphics, pixels, or comical visuals we keep seeing, it can get kinda tiring to the eye. BoneWorld is clean, smooth, and modern. Like a cool refreshing drink on a hot summer day.
Utility
At first glance, it didn’t seem like these BoneWorld NFTs offered much utility. However, the more I read about it the more I like everything that it’s doing. Where do I even start? First of all, its 3D files. So fucking cool. Not only will holders be able to add them to metaverse games like VR chat. The team is also partnering with multiple projects which will be implementing BoneWorld NFTs in their virtual worlds.
BoneWorld has already integrated with VishV, a P2E metaverse game that explores galaxies, stars, and planets. They have also partnered with Kreechures, the combat game where players can user their BoneWorld NFTs to train, battle, and earn rewards. Down the line, the team is working on integrating their Skellies into Portals, Rumble worlds, Solseums, and Plush Fights. Exciting stuff!
These NFTs cater not just to the digital world but also the physical world — merch! When I first saw its plans to expand into its own merchandise, I thought it would just be your run-of-the-mill boring tshirts, hats, and whatnots. Boy, was I wrong. They’re planning on doing little metal skull pendants, 3D printed jewelry, and 3D collectible toys. The founder has floated around the idea of a self-assemblable 3D toy (think: legos) where you can mix and match various parts. Holy shit, this is new. I’m personally a huge lego fan and I think this would be so fucking cool. I also have a lot of friends who are toy collectors and would be excited in collecting little knick-knacks like this.
Community
BoneWorld has 14.6K Twitter followers (NBD but they’re followed by Portals, Brett Harrison, and Metaplex btw) and 21.5K Discord members. Their Discord is super active, with members giving off good vibes and everyone just chillin’. They also host open mic nights where members can voice out their opinions and feedbacks on the direction of the project. Easy, nice, and laidback.
Team
Now, I think the strongest aspect of BoneWorld is undoubtedly its team. They are so damn transparent. In a good way, of course. They literally write on their website how their initial launch almost didn’t work out cause the mint price was too high and all the fuck-ups they encountered throughout their journey. They rebranded themselves through the power of the crypto community (shedding an imaginary tear cause this is so touching), and are really dedicated 100% into this project. They also do something that they call a “corrupt giveaway”, where they screen their giveaway participants to ensure they’re not just those giveaway retweet accounts and are actually real people who engage. It just seems like they really care about every little aspect of their project. I just get good vibes from them. You know how sometimes you just know? Yeah.
BoneWorld NFTs are currently listed on multiple Solana NFT marketplaces but mainly on Magic Eden. The floor price sits at 0.4 SOL at the time of writing and the total traded volume is 13,271.9 SOL. Obviously, I’m bullish because this project is unlike anything I’ve seen. And also good vibes.
Part 5. The Value of NFTs
When I look at the current NFT market, I can distinguish 3 main categories. Branding/Community — projects like CryptoPunk and BAYC. Utility/Use Case — projects like Portals and Loot. And hype train — I’m not gonna give any examples for obvious reasons.
Branding & Community
So, how do you identify this? First impressions is the logo. Logos matter a lot in terms of a project identifying as a brand. Without a logo, what is there to brand? Beyond this, how does the project reward or breed community engagement? Roadmap’s are the first metric of measuring whether a project based on this will achieve it. Once you’ve assessed a roadmap, the next thing you should inspect is how the actual team engages, interacts and assists those joining or in the community. Being unique is also a key aspect. Derivatives cannot establish a community with more demand than the predecessor. Have you seen any of those BAYC copycats achieve success that surpass the original. Lol, no.
Utility & Use Cases
Recently this has been a focus in Solana. P2E, staking for tokens and so on. In 2022 I think the strides for progress in these areas will be quite impressive. If I had to bet on any NFTs to increase in value. This is it. Now, how to identify. Simple really, does your NFT provide you some alternative use, rewards, features? Then it has utility. What make this so important is it’s utilizing the technology NFTs allow and THIS is where its value stands. You’re not just buying a JPEG. It’s important to acknowledge the risks because games take time, technology needs to be developed, toyed with and can it really stand the test of time. Without the right funding or team, none of this will occur.
Hype Trains
These are simple. If some influencer is blowing their page up with a project. These in my opinion are super shit for the crypto space so I try to avoid them most of the time. Especially right now with so many two-bit influencers doing paid shills. All I can say is, watch out for red flags and PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
Part 6. Concluding Thoughts
Whew, we made it! This one was a long one but definitely one of the pieces I’ve most enjoyed writing about (not shaming my PsyOptions piece lol). Imma be honest though, I originally wanted to write a piece where I pick 5 NFT projects on Solana that I think have great potential, but I had so much trouble picking 5. Trust me, just go look through Solanart or Solsea and you’ll know what I mean.
I still think that the Solana NFT market is on track to become bigger than Ethereum. It just has a lot to work on. Like a lot. There’s undoubtedly many aspects of the Solana chain that is still very behind Ethereum, and it shows. But it’s also an improved alternative that’s better equipped for NFT transactions in terms of speed, cost, and scalability. This is just one of the few reasons why I’m paying closer attention to Solana NFTs as opposed to Ethereum NFTs.
I really encourage you to look at floor prices, volumes, listing %, unique holders before buying into existing collections. As for upcoming drops, check who’s talking about them, what the team is like, the ambitions, the strategies. Hang out in their Discord a bit. And most importantly, do you even like the art?
Here are a couple Solana analysis tools that I find useful:
Solana Analysis probably has the most comprehensive and complete data. They also just recently got an upgrade on their functions.
Sol Radar tracks price movements of NFT collections.
Sol Sniper lets you graph the floor prices and volumes.
That’s it for now! I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more promising Solana NFT projects, might write a part 2 to this. Or even make this a regular/reoccurring series?
Once again, this is not financial advice but merely my own opinion. I’m not a financial expert nor am I affiliated with any of the NFT projects I mentioned. I just thought they’re pretty damn cool, but always DYOR on any crypto projects.
If you do end up buying these NFT projects I mentioned, shoot me a message and let me know! If you end up losing money, don’t sue me pls thanks. If you liked what you just read, follow my Medium and subscribe so you get a notification whenever I publish a new story!
