Solana flips Polygon, becomes second-largest network for NFTs

• Solana recorded sales volumes of more than $1.5 million in the last 24 hours, placing itself just below Ethereum.
• Thursday’s market mayhem caused SOL to become the eighth-largest crypto by market cap.

The non-fungible token (NFT) vertical of Web3 has failed to take off in 2023, unlike its fungible counterparts. Sales volume has hit historic lows, with implosions like the Azuki fiasco severely impeding its growth.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Solana Profit Calculator

Solana [SOL]‘s NFT ecosystem was also at the receiving end of the negative sentiment, registering a decline in several key performance indicators (KPIs).

However, the adage—one moment down, another moment up—perfectly sums up the trajectory of the digital assets market. Over the last week, Solana flipped Polygon [MATIC] to become the second-largest blockchain for NFTs.

What changed for Solana?

The fight for the No. 2 spot heats up

According to NFT market tracking website Cryptoslam, Solana recorded sales volumes of more than $1.5 million in the last 24 hours, placing itself just below Ethereum [ETH], which was head and shoulders above the rest of the market.

Moreover, Solana logged transactions worth $9.8 million over the last week, flipping Polygon, which was dominating the charts. Polygon registered NFT trades worth $8.7 million over the last week.

Cryptoslam

The boost in Solana’s NFT fortunes possibly came from the popular gaming-based NFT collection, The Heist: Orangutans, which renewed for a second season recently.

Here come the Orangutans…

After an overwhelmingly positive feedback on the Season 1 art of @playtheheist, we were even more motivated it to take it to the next level in Season 2.

We are thankful to The Heist team for the opportunity to keep being the art team for such a… pic.twitter.com/56xNME504s

— Allegro.art (@Allegroart) August 16, 2023

According to a post on Twitter dated 17 August, The Heist: Orangutans was one of the top-performing NFTs in the market, briefly going past Polygon-based DraftKings and even the blue-chip collections in sales volume.

Going forward, Solana might retain its No. 2 spot in the market as Polygon braced for the departure of the DeLabs-owned profile picture (PFP) collection y00ts. Although the date for the migration towards Ethereum hasn’t been announced, the exit was expected to cause a considerable dent in Polygon’s NFT trades.

The biggest beneficiary of this development could turn out to be Solana.

Read Solana’s [SOL] Price Prediction 2023-24

What’s going on with SOL?

The Thursday bloodbath didn’t spare the native token of the ecosystem, SOL. The coin plunged 9.89% as Bitcoin’s [BTC] implosion brought the market down with it.

However, the market mayhem caused the asset to overthrow popular memecoin Dogecoin [DOGE] to become the eighth-largest crypto by market cap, data from CoinMarketCap revealed.