Polygon Paid Y00ts Developers $3M to Migrate From Solana

Top non-fungible tokens developer DeLabs got a $3 million grant from Polygon to migrate its NFT projects -DeGods and y00ts- to the layer-2 network from Solana

In a discord post, the project leader Frank revealed y00ts got $3 million in a non-equity grant from Polygon for the migration.

When the announcement was made in December, Frank said the migration was because the projects had capped out on Solana. He added that:

“It’s hard to accept, but it’s been tough to grow at the rate we want to grow. If Ethereum is where we have to go to keep growing, it’s what we have to do.”

DeLabs Will Use Polygon’s Grant to Scale Incubator

According to the statement, the funding will be spent on expanding the DeLabs team. It would also be used “to kickstart and initially help scale the incubator” the project was building for its NFT collections. According to Frank, the incubator will allow users to “spend y00tpoints and DePoints to mint [its] incubator’s NFT collections.”

Besides that, the expansion will allow DeLabs to create higher quality projects and “provide actually cool partnerships/deals/discounts/perks with real businesses.” 

However, he noted that the migration to Polygon was not solely influenced by money. Frank said the project rejected “bigger offers” from other blockchains. He added that the decision was made because it was the “most exciting direction” for the project.

The Team Previously Denied it Was Paid to Migrate

Meanwhile, this revelation contradicts the earlier claims by DeLabs’s founders that there was no financial motivation behind its migration.

The DeGods team rejected rumors that it asked for $5 million from the Solana foundation to remain on the network.

Nonetheless, the disclosure represents Polygon’s effort to attract top projects from other networks. DeGods and y00ts are the two top NFT projects on Solana.

Polygon, on its part, has secured partnerships and onboarded several brands, like Starbucks, Instagram, Reddit, DraftKings, and Nike, to web3.

DeGods and y00ts Floor Price

Solana floor data shows that DeGods and y00ts floor prices have risen by 16% and 10% in the last 24 hours to 575 SOL and 163.69 SOL, respectively.

Meanwhile, an NFT analyst WarDaddyCapital pointed out that the projects have “cruised past their sol ATHs” since the migration announcement. According to other analysts, the collections have seen renewed interest from investors in the space.