🍬 Solana Sets Sail ⛵

GM and welcome to Sol Sweet, the email that keeps you up to date with the Pepsi of blockchains. This week:

• Solana + OpenSea

• A Decentralized Google Maps?

• Your Move ME

• VCs Double Down on Sol

• A Video on Solana DeFi

Solana + OpenSea

The best kept secret in web3 (their words, not ours) is now live in Beta.

That's right, the biggest NFT marketplace now supports the biggest best blockchain for NFTs.

*cue Kevin Rudolf - "I I I made it" 

After teasing the launch of Solana NFTs last week, OpenSea wasted no time in going live.

As expected, all the blue chips are available on the platform as well as a host of other projects. But the one question we're all asking is...

Are we rich yet?

In all seriousness, it will take some time to understand the effects of the move on Solana prices. The hope is that by being able to list on OpenSea, exposure to Solana and Solana NFTs will increase simply because OpenSea is more widely known.

But will it surpass current Solana NFT marketplace leader, Magic Eden (more on them in a minute) as the go to platform amongst the Sol community? And how will we know the true floor prices?

Don't worry frens, we here at Sol Sweet have got you covered.

Marketplace aggregator Hyperspace.xyz has OpenSea prices alongside Magic Eden prices to save you precious tab space in Chrome 😉 

A Decentralized Google Maps?

Hands up if you've ever used Google Maps 🙋‍♀️ Or you might be an Apple fan 🤨

And how many times have you said out loud "I wish there was a decentralized version of this that's not tracking my every move."

Ok, most people probably haven't said that. But you dear reader, being a web3 believer, have at least considered it, right?

Enter Hivemapper, a new way of mapping that's built on Solana and lets you earn their token while driving.

And they just raised $18M to make it happen.

Pre-orders for the dashcam are live now for $449 and will start shipping to 30+ cities in July. Once installed, users will automatically mine the HONEY token while capturing map footage.

It's yet another example of the rise in Work-to-Earn amongst web3. Like StepN which is also built on Solana, Hivemapper will hope to see big adoption and fast growth.

Shout out to @ShaanVP who had a good thread explaining Work-to-Earn and how to watch for the next big one.

Your Move ME

R.I.P Magic Eden, formerly the biggest NFT marketplace for Solana.

That might be a little early to say, but you can be forgiven for assuming ME will fade into the background now OpenSea is listing Solana NFTs.

So what do you do when you get knocked down?

You innovate! (if you said "get back up", take a good hard look in the mirror)

ME knew the obvious was coming and they were prepared, announcing they will start accepting payment in tokens from top NFT projects.

They've also released a new feature that lets you see floor price and volume history without leaving the platform.

While these are cool features, they're more tailored toward loyal users than average users.

Whether it's loyalty, or familiarity, this site shows ME is still dwarfing OpenSea in Solana volume in the early going.

We'll be watching closely to see how this plays out over the next few weeks. At least we'll always have this Twitter interaction between ME and OS.

VCs Double Down on Sol

Despite a rocky first quarter, VCs are still bullish on Solana.

Funding continues to pour into the space, with gaming being a key focus point.

Crypto gaming marketplace Fractal, raised $35M last week.

The platform hosts Solana NFTs and co-founder Justin Kan said they "started with Solana because we thought that was the best user experience for users, gamers and game companies."

It's yet another nod to the speed and price advantage of Solana over Ethereum, which will continue to be attractive as the NFT gaming space builds out.

Expect to see this trend continue and the price of Sol go up 🚀

No, that was not financial advice!

A Video on Solana DeFi

Another thing we're keeping tabs on here at Sol Sweet is Solana DeFi.

DeFi has been a big part of the narrative and adoption in web3, due to smart contracts enabled by blockchain technology.

Much of the DeFi activity has centered around Ethereum as the most widely used L1 protocol.

But Solana DeFi is on the rise.

The total value locked (TVL*) on Solana has nearly 4x'd since Decrypt reported it surpassing $2B back in August.

*TVL refers to how many crypto assets are tied up in DeFi protocols on the network

If you're like us and were a bit lost on how this all works, we found this awesome video from Crypto Coyote explaining how to leverage your Sol via staking and 0% loans.

You don't need to thank us, it's what we're here for 😉

The Week Ahead

Here's what to keep your eye on next week:

• OpenSea's impact on Solana NFTs

• Solana Miami runs through April 10 - there's been plenty of buzz on Twitter already featuring Gary Vee and Tim Tebow

• Sol Sweet drops again next Friday 🤩

Ok that's all from me. If you enjoyed this please share with another Sol mate. And follow me on Twitter.

@TenderKiwi a.k.a "I I I (haven't) made it (yet)"