🍬 Full Circle 🟣

GM and welcome to SOL Sweet. For the first time since we started this newsletter, we're in the green week-to-week. Let's see what happened in the past 7 days:

• Solana NFTs are hot right now

• The update is live

• NFTea anyone?

• Extra sweets

In 2 minutes and 42 seconds - sweet 👍

Solana NFTs are hot right now

Interest in Solana NFTs continues to boom.

Leading Solana NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, has seen 4x the amount of transactions compared to OpenSea in the past 7 days.

It's important to note that OpenSea still outpaces Magic Eden in volume and users. But Solana is clearly catching up.

I've even seen it personally in NFT discords I'm in. These groups have primarily been focused on Ethereum. Now, users are discussing Solana NFTs too.

So what is driving this interest for Solana?

As CoinDesk points out, it is likely down to minimal transaction fees. Along with speed, this is the foundation of the Solana blockchain.

Lower fees help reduce the barrier to entry, allowing more users into the space. This probably contributes to the higher number of transactions seen on Magic Eden vs OpenSea.

Another factor - the success of Okay Bears - we talked about that project a few weeks ago.

And that success was backed up this week when we saw a copycat pop up on Ethereum.

Not Okay Bears is literally the same as Okay Bears, just flipped to face the other way.

In the NFT space, this is called a derivative.

Marketplaces do a careful job of highlighting such projects as a derivative of an original. OpenSea eventually removed Not Okay Bears from their marketplace.

In the early days of Solana NFTs, it was common to see Ethereum derivatives. Especially from the big projects - Bored Apes and Crypto Punks.

And not to be outdone, we saw a BAYC derivative - Bored Ape Solana Club - pump in response to the Not Okay Bears pump. At the time of writing BASC was sitting at ~19 SOL floor price on Magic Eden. A week ago you could buy one for 0.15 SOL. That was about $8 🤷‍♂️

On Twitter there's been plenty of sparring between ETH and SOL NFT collectors. Now that Magic Eden is rivalling OpenSea activity, it will be fun to see if they can eventually dethrone them.

Regardless, a Solana derivative gaining attention is a full circle moment for SOL NFTs.

The update is live

Solana's much anticipated update has now been rolled out - to the testnet (think of this like the test database at a large company).

This update is expected to help with congestion issues and stop outages.

It will be slowly rolled out to the mainnet beta from there (again, this of this as the live database).

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko hosted a Twitter spaces to discuss the three key features of the update:

1. QUIC protocol

2. Stake-weighted transactions

3. Fee prioritization

What the heck does all that mean?

Let's briefly explain each feature in plain old English.

QUIC protocol is essentially asynchronous communication which allows transactions requests to be sent without needing an immediate response. This helps free up the network from congestion when high numbers of transaction requests are submitted.

Stake-weighted transactions replace the current first-come-first serve approval method. Validators will now submit transaction volumes aligned with their amount of SOL staked. This is a key feature in helping to prevent bots from spamming high numbers of transactions.

Fee prioritization will see priority given to transactions with higher fees. This is a touchy subject for Solana since the network is built on the promise of speed and low fees. But there seems to be a consensus that some form of increased fees are necessary to stop botting from taking down the network.

While optimistic, Toly noted the update will take time optimize and get right.

Solana users may not see an immediate impact, but a more robust blockchain capable of living up to its promises is on the horizon.

Now, as they say in crypto - to the moon!

NFTea anyone?

Speaking of Solana NFTs, Kung Fu Tea announced the launch of utility based NFTs late last week.

Appropriately named Kung Fu Tea Fighting Boba Club, the collection features 8,888 hand drawn jpegs.

So far this sounds just like any other NFT project, right?

Yes and no. The company plans to integrate the NFTs across their mobile app, website, and 350 stores.

Perks (sorry, utility) will include free toppings, discounts, and invites to real-life events.

This may seem gimmicky from the outside, but it shows yet another example of how NFTs can be used in day-to-day life.

And let's be honest, "are you a member of our fighting boba club, maam?" sounds waaay better than "do you have a loyalty card?"

Extra Sweets

Two words - "bot tax". That's how Metaplex is solving the NFT botting problem.

These are the top 3 Solana projects the whole world will soon be talking about. Although you might argue StepN has already got there!

TVL is on the decline, reaching a new low for the year. Bearish 👎

StepN does a deep dive on their own tokenomics. They address some of the key criticisms of the project and highlight how they plan to address them.

Ok that's all for this week. Hit reply and tell me what you're keeping your eye on. Or if it sucked, tell me why.

And share this with that friend who should be keeping up with Solana. It'll only take about 10 seconds to hit forward, type their name, and send. Thanks!

- Toby (@TenderKiwi)