Published on: 27/12/2022
DeGods, y00ts to leave Solana for alternative blockchains in 2023
DeGods and y00ts, two prominent Solana NFT projects, have announced their transitions to alternative blockchains in 2023. Degods will move to the Ethereum blockchain, while Y00ts will move to Polygon.
Their decisions are based on Solana’s issues with its former partnership with FTX, which filed for bankruptcy on November 11 this year. There are records saying Solana Foundation has 3.24 million stock shares and tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency in FTX.
Solana, which was tightly associated with FTX, took a major hit in its partner’s downfall. Solana’s gaming activities dropped by 89.42 percent last month to just 2,326 dUAWs, the lowest it had ever recorded.
Launched in October 2021, DeGods is an NFT project that has created 10,000 PFP deflationary NFTs. Project leader Rohun Vora, also known as Frank, announced DeGods’ departure from Solana to Ethereum on Monday. Meanwhile, the y00ts NFT team has also revealed on Twitter they will be moving to Polygon in the first quarter of 2023.
According to Eli Tan from CoinDesk, their announcements were met with divisive receptions. While most builders in the NFT sector supported their decisions, some criticized them. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said the departure of DeGods and y00ts was “bittersweet” but remained supportive of their decision to expand their reach.
“There’s an argument to be made that [DeGods] has capped out on Solana,” Vora said. “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.”
DeGods and y00ts are two of the biggest NFT projects in the Solana NFT market. The former has 515 SOL or $5,750 at the floor price, which is the highest in the Solana ecosystem. Y00ts released its collection this fall and has a 148 SOL or $1,660 at the floor price.
After the announcement, DeGods’ collection floor price increased by 12 percent on Monday, while sales for y00ts increased by five SOLs or around $5. According to data from Magic Eden, in the week before the announcement, DeGods and y00ts’ sales made up almost 70 percent of Solana’s entire NFT sales volume.
Solana’s downfall
Based on data from Token Terminal, Solana’s NFT ecosystem has been experiencing a decline in the number of active developers by 90 percent throughout 2022.
Ekta Mourya from FXStreet wrote that Solana is at risk of declining to $10.94. Its price has dropped 95.6 percent below its record of $259.56 and is currently at $11.33 in value. Solana’s native crypto asset, SOL, is also down by 94.2 percent over the last 30 days and has lost 19.7 percent against the U.S. dollar.
Last year, Solana’s SOL was one of the top ten crypto assets. Although the digital currency has been struggling to hold its highest position at the market cap, Solana’s NFT sales are still the second largest out of 19 blockchain networks.
Ethereum led the last seven days with $129.12 million out of $154 million in sales. Meanwhile, Solana was second with $14.65 million in NFT sales. On the other hand, Polygon is currently the fourth of the largest NFT sales at $2.38 million.
