Solana NFT is booming, and here’s how you can get started Minting an NFT on the Solana Blockchain
Get onboard the Solana NFT Craze — A quick-help guide to minting your first NFT
If you’ve been following cryptocurrency news or constantly keeping in touch with the developments, you know the potential of Solana. The cryptocurrency token Solana (SOL) has been one of the best performing crypto tokens and often outperformed Bitcoin.
Solana reached an all-time high of $214.36 in September and recently brought in Defi and NFTs. NFTs have been the other buzzword on the internet with high demand as collectors battle it out to own a unique piece of a digital asset.
NFTs or Non-fungible Tokens have become the newest investment asset that the internet is moving into with its uniqueness and high store of value. But with the rising number in the NFT sales volume has also paved the way to a high rise in gas fees in Ethereum.
Nearly 95% of the NFTs today use the Ethereum blockchain. NFT markets such as OpenSea.io, Rarible operate in the Eth blockchain, but the gas fees have seen a significant rise as of late.
Gas fees refer to the amount that is needed on the blockchain to validate a transaction has skyrocketed. In September alone, the gas fees average went up to $59 before arriving at $12.2 a few days later. But the amount is still at a high level.
With such a setting, Solana’s NFT marketplaces have soared, catching the eye of the modern investor with a slow but progressive shift from the leading players.
Today, Solana has three stable marketplaces listing NFTs, and this number is only expected to increase in the coming months.
More and more creators have understood the rising value of the SOL token. They are considering the switch from the traditional options to listing them of marketplaces in the Solana blockchain.
The recent million-dollar NFT sale of Degen Ape #7225 was the icing on the cake for Solana NFTs to take off.
A growing prospect
While the Solana NFT market is on the rise, several new art categories are emerging with the power of the blockchain. Aiko is one of the trendsetters as they become the first erotic AI-infused NFT.
A first of its kind, Aiko is set to debut their first AI NFT collection, “I’M AIKO,” on the Solana NFT marketplaces in October. Speaking to the distinctive erotic art enthusiasts and collectors, Aiko uses AI to generate unique NFTs that users could mint onto their wallets.
So how do you mint a Solana NFT? We’ve made a quick refresher guide for anyone to get to know the basics to mint an NFT with Solanaart.io — one of the leading marketplace on the blockchain.
Most of what is discussed here are general guidelines for making the first purchase of Solana and could be used on any marketplace.
1 Setting up a Phantom Wallet
Most Solana NFT marketplaces support three common wallets
Here, the most popular option is Phantom, so that we will use it for this article. If you have set up MetaMask that integrates with Ethereum, this shouldn’t be too much of an ask.
- Install the Phantom wallet onto your browser as an add-on. Phantom currently supports Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Edge). It can be downloaded by visiting the official Phantom website
- Click on Create New Wallet and follow the steps
- Click on the setup guide, if you need any help along the way
2 — Purchasing Solana
To purchase an NFT in any marketplace, you will need to have SOL in your wallet. You can buy SOL in any leading cryptocurrency exchanges such as CoinBase Pro, Binance, or OKEx.
There are several other exchanges where you can buy SOL and once you have made the purchase, transfer it to your wallet using the Phantom Wallet address.
Usually, the withdrawal process from the exchange to showing up on the wallet will take about 5 minutes.
3 Making the Purchase
Now that you have the SOL in your wallet, now it is time to go looking around. Solana is a new NFT ecosystem, and some places might still be on Beta and Alpha modes.
But Solanart.io is one of the most stable and reliable places where you could be investing your time.
Buying an NFT on Solanart.io is nothing different from buying NFTs using Etheruem on OpenSea.io or Mintable. The only advantage is that you get to benefit from the low gas fees that Solana comes with.
You can browse thousands of NFTs on display on Solanaart with a simple search and shortlist what you would want to mint.
Solanart does not restrict users to the extremes of the other mainstream marketplaces — instead, it has welcomed NSFW artists as well.
There is a separate option that you can choose if you want to take a look at those collections, and once you find what you need, it is just a matter of a few seconds before it appears in your wallet.
The experience is similar on Digitaleyes.market, the other leading space that has been the destination for NFT creators. Some options on Digitaleyes remain as Alpha, but that does not mean that you don’t get the chance to interact and mint an NFT.
Popular NFTs on Solana has been the Degen Ape collection from Degenerate Ape Academy, the SolPunks — a CyberPunk inspired collection, and Solana Monkey Business.
The Solana Monkey Business NFTs even got popular tv show host Steve Harvey excited, and he even went ton to change his Twitter profile photo to one of the NFTs recently.
The Solana Monkey Business NFT was Steve Harvey’s official Twitter profile photo for a while
YouTube sensation KSI also took to Twitter to add a few words about his new Solana NFT purchase with a dig at Ethereum’s high gas fees.
For someone arriving from OpenSea or any other Ethereum based NFT marketplace, the experience on Solana is going to be an enjoyable one.
While the collections are still being listed on Solanaart and other marketplaces, this space is a destination that every NFT enthusiast will watch out for, especially with what’s to come.
Aiko’s AI-infused “I’M AIKO” collection will be one of those which would be on the watchlist without a doubt. Reaching out to the erotic art enthusiasts, the Aiko will attract a new set of individuals anticipating the initial collection launch.
The creators of Aiko also have plans to build a unique marketplace designated for erotic art on the Solana blockchain, and this is tipped to arrive towards the 1st quarter of 2022.
