Solana gets its game face on, could it be ready to launch into the GameFi industry

Is Solana still the shining sun in the sky and Ethereum killer it was prophesied to be? No one knows for sure but a new partnership and some metrics reveal the latest details.

Know your worth

After months of swimming in the red, the ninth biggest crypto by market cap crossed the psychological price of $100 and was trading at $100.29 at press time. This came after SOL rallied by 9.78% in the last 24 hours, and increased by 15.22% in the last week. An impressive show, one must admit, even if several other alts have stepped in front of it.

But if you are looking for a bigger milestone, have a peek at the total NFT trade volume in USD. While SOL’s price may be a long way from its $240+ highs, the industry has been seeing an uptick in NFT trade volume, and this metric struck its new all time high on 15 March, with a volume of $324.79 million. It seems Solana is entering the NFT-based game industry at an opportune moment.

Source: Santiment

Get your game face on

While more consistency is needed if Solana wants to usurp Ethereum in the NFT sector, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko made it clear that he was (pleasantly) surprised by the more than one million Solana users with NFTs in their wallets.

So, why is this significant? To refresh your memory, Solana Labs and KRAFTON, Inc. – of PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS fame – recently announced that they had signed an agreement “for the development and operation of blockchain- and NFT-based games and services.”

As Solana diversifies its presence and attempts to bridge Web2 and Web3 tools and yes, entertainment, NFTs are likely to play a major role in network adoption. For that reason, those trying to chart out Solana’s trajectory should also keep their eyes peeled for both NFT and GameFi-related updates.

What’s more, the main question here is whether or not a push into the NFT-based GameFi industry could take Solana back to being Ethereum’s number one rival.

To that end, let’s look at development activity to see how much building is going on in the Solana ecosystem.

Source: Santiment

The truth? Yakovenko might dream of thousands of developers and 100 million users on Solana, but development activity has been dropping throughout 2022. While the metric might not be as low as it was in late October, the downtrend is nearly impossible to deny. Overall, this is not a sign of healthy, long term growth.

Finally, despite the high profile announcement and SOL’s recovery, it’s worth noting that weighted sentiment for Solana was still in negative territory.

It seems the coin needs to do more before investors decide to board the hype train again.

Source: Santiment