The Non-fungible token (NFT) market is booming, and at its helm is the top NFT marketplace – OpenSea. Or at least it used to be before it was overtaken by the newly launched LooksRare. The latter is now handling traffic worth more than double the figures registered by OpenSea.
Naturally, OpenSea has been looking to expand its base farther from the Ethereum-based NFTs that it traditionally hosts, as several other players emerge across the market. According to recent reports, the platform may soon even feature NFTs based on the rival Solana blockchain, as Ethereum’s dominance in the space continues to decline.
This will also allow the biggest marketplace access to even more collectibles that are rising in popularity.
Popular hacker Jane Manchun Wong, who has previously leaked upcoming developments from popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook, revealed on Twitter that OpenSea is working to integrate Solana based-NFTs along with support for the Phantom wallet.
Worth noting, however, that OpenSea is yet to issue a statement accepting or denying Wong’s claims.
OpenSea is working on Solana integration, as well as @Phantom wallet support pic.twitter.com/ZEefshKSY1
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) January 25, 2022
This comes at a time when NFT transactions on the Solana blockchain have crossed the $1 billion mark in total volume in January 2022. In fact, Solana-based marketplace Magic Eden was the fourth-highest in terms of daily transaction volume.
This could be a cause for concern for NFT maestro Ethereum, whose dominance in the market has dropped from 98% to 80% in recent months. Much of this can be attributed to the rising gas fee and high transaction times that are characteristic of the network.
Although, since these issues have also begun to seep into Solana’s system as its popularity soars, its emergence as a competitor to Ethereum has been seriously challenged too.
OpenSea itself has been facing some challenges as the threat of competitors looms closer. The marketplace saw a boom this month when it surpassed its previous record made in September last year by carrying out sales of $3.8 billion. In fact, researchers at Zapper found that since its inception, OpenSea has carried out trade worth over $12 billion through 25 million transactions.
The devs at @zapper_fi just finished indexing all the NFT transfers and OpenSea sales since block 0 on mainnet.
That’s:
– ~26k collections
– ~25 million NFT transfers
– ~12 billions in sales on OpenSea
– Very bullish pic.twitter.com/HBcikBl5VN— felixd.eth 🦇🔊🐼 (@__felixd) January 25, 2022
However, it has recently fallen behind recently launched LooksRare which fueled much of the January momentum and flipped OpenSea dominance.
Moreover, the recent or upcoming launch of marketplaces by centralized crypto-exchanges like Coinbase and FTX might hurt OpenSea’s business more, giving much impetus to its decision of broadening its horizons beyond Ethereum.