Solana NFT Sales Skyrocket to $5 Billion: A Historic Milestone

• Solana NFTs had a slow start to the year in 2023 but ended the year strongly, recording $365 million in trading volume in December to hit $5 billion in cumulative all-time volume.
• The NFT awakening coincided with SOL’s price surge towards the end of last year where it hit over $120 in December after trading below $20 just three months prior.

NFTs may no longer be receiving the hype or investment they did a few years back, but the Solana ecosystem keeps on growing and setting new records. NFTs on Solana recently hit the $5 billion landmark in all-time trading volume, with buyers exceeding 2.2 million.

It wasn’t the best of years in 2023 for NFTs. As most cryptos struggled in the first eight months and hit two-year lows, the volume in the NFT markets dried up. On OpenSea, September recorded just $76 million in trading volume, the lowest since February 2021. For context, OpenSea was clearing over $3 billion a month during the 2021 NFT hype season.

Solana NFTs reflected the market struggles last year and for the first eight months, they struggled as well. According to data from CryptoSlam, September was the lowest month at just $23 million. The next month saw a slight uptick to $28 million and in November, more than tripled to $82 million.

December was the bumper month for Solana NFTs as they recorded over $365 million in trading volume. This was the highest monthly volume since October 2021 at the height of NFT mania when they recorded $373 in monthly volume.

Solana Ecosystem Thrives

While the volume has dipped slightly since the December record, it’s still quite high. In January, around $240 million worth of Solana NFTs changed hands, followed by $175 million this month.

But while the volume may not be as high, the number of buyers and sellers has been soaring this year. In January, the number of unique buyers stood at 269,121; this number shot up to 342,534 this month, the highest it has ever been. In fact, the number of unique buyers has been above 269,000 for three consecutive months.

Solana’s robust NFT activity has seen the network keep pace with the rest of the blockchain world. In the past 30 days, only Ethereum at $511 million and Bitcoin at $267 million have recorded higher NFT sales than Solana’s $217 million.  However, Solana beats the top two for the number of buyers and sellers and has five times more NFT transactions than Ethereum.

On the all-time chart, it’s second only to Ethereum at $5 billion in total volume, ahead of second-placed Ronin (of the Axie Infinity NFTs fame) at $4.2 billion.

And it’s not just the NFTs. As CNF revealed recently (watch the video below), Solana’s TVL recently hit $2 billion for the first time since June 2022.

Meanwhile, the SOL price has maintained above the $100 price level despite shedding 8.5% in the past week. At press time, SOL changes hands at $102.32.

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