Best Solana NFT Marketplaces

1. Magic Eden NFT

Magic Eden is the largest native Solana NFT Marketplace that trades over $10 million in daily volume. The Magic Eden platform has a variety of features including it's market-leading NFT marketplace, an NFT launchpad with all of the latest SOL art and much more. They have also recently deployed multi-chain and are available on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon.

• ‍Pros: Largest Solana NFT marketplace, widest variety of SOL NFTs, low gas fees and marketplace fees.‍
• Cons: Does not offer a native bridge to move NFTs from Ethereum or other networks to Solana.

2. OpenSea Solana

OpenSea is the largest multi-chain NFT Marketplace that supports Solana native NFTs. Their platform trades millions of dollars in volume on a daily basis for all of the top SOL NFTs which include DeGods, Okay Bears, The Orcs, DopeHeadz, SOLgods and many others. We recommend that users use OpenSea Solana over any other SOL NFT Marketplace for the best and lowest fee experience.

• Pros: The largest multi-chain NFT Marketplace in the world supporting Ethereum, Polygon and Solana. Integrates with most Solana Web 3 wallets.‍
• Cons: Does not offer as many Solana NFTs as Magic Eden.

3. Coral Cube

Coral Cube is the largest NFT Marketplace aggregator that is native to the Solana blockchain. This means that this platform aggregates all of the listings across different NFT Marketplaces on Solana and lists them on one easy to use interface. There are also rumours that Coral Cube will airdrop their token once it goes live to users who buy and sell on their NFT Marketplace.

• Pros: Most popular NFT Marketplace aggregator on Solana. Also potential for airdrop if you use the Coral Cube marketplace.
• Cons: User interface may be difficult to understand for new users.

4. Goatswap

Goatswap is a new NFT Marketplace and a fork of Sudoswap from the Ethereum blockchain. It is the first NFT automated market maker (AMM) on Solana that allows users to trade NFTs like tokens on a DEX in a completely trustless and decentralized manner. It allows users to create 'NFT Pools' which enables investors to gradually buy or sell NFT collections along price curves like UniSwap V3.

• Pros: The first and only NFT AMM on Solana. The platform does not charge any fees to buy, sell or create NFT pools on their marketplace.
• Cons: The marketplace does not trade high volumes and has very limited Solana NFT collections available. It is also a fork of another protocol called Sudoswap, which makes the design unoriginal.

5. Solsea

Solsea is the first marketplace on the Solana network that allows their creators to embed copyright licences directly in the NFTs. Meaning you may not only sell the ownership of your digital work but you can also specify how the buyer uses your NFT. A private use licence allows the owner of the NFT to only use it for private purposes and a commercial licence allows the buyer to distribute the creators work freely.

• ‍Pros: Creators can embed copyright licences in their NFTs, supports multiple currencies such as USDT, USDC, SOL & supports FTX-Pay, option to have public or private NFTs, supports Phantom, Solflare, and Sollet crypto wallets, artists can decide their own creator’s fee.‍
• Cons: There were bugs and fake NFTs being marked as verified but their team have announced there will be reimbursements for users who were scammed and have taken measures to ensure it can't happen again. 

6. Solanart.io

The Solanart marketplace is widely regarded as the ‘OG Solana Marketplace’ and is home to some of the most famous NFT projects on Solana such as Degen Ape Academy, Aurory and Solpunks.

• ‍Pros: Supports several wallets including Solflare, Phantom, Clover, Sollet, Slope, Ledger, MathWallet, and Sollet (Extension). Has most of the major NFT collections built on the Solana network.  ‍
• Cons: Doesn’t offer minting yet, users need to fill out a google form you can find it in their Discord. 

7. DigitalEyes.market

DigitalEyes marketplace offers the lowest fees among the Solana NFT marketplace with a 2.5% fee on all sales, they currently have an ongoing promotion where service fees are now 0.99% until 28th Feb 2022. They do not charge fees for listing and delisting but typical Solana gas (transaction) fees will apply.

• ‍Pros: Lowest and best fees on this list and has major NFT projects such as Solana Galactic Gecko Space Garage, Frakt and Pesky Penguins. Supported wallets are Phantom, Sollet, Solflare, Solong, Slope, and MathWallet.‍
• Cons: Sometimes listed NFTs may take longer to reflect on their platform.

8. Metaplex

Metaplex is an open-source platform built by and for creators to launch their own self-hosted and custom storefronts for NFTs. Users Metaplex Storefront connects to a powerful on-chain decentralised program that mints and sells the NFTs, removing the middleman and their fees.

• ‍Pros: Connects creators to buyers without needing to pay a marketplace fee to anyone. Heaps of successful Solana NFT projects have been launched on this platform including Degen Ape Academy, Solana Monkey Business, Genopets, Nyan Heroes, and Oddkey.‍
• Cons: Only supports Solana tokens as payment.

What is an NFT Marketplace?

To simplify it, you can think of an NFT marketplace like Ebay but for digital assets (NFTs specifically). NFT marketplaces link sellers and buyers on their platforms and allow them to sell and buy digital assets. Users can use these platforms to sell, buy and mint NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens) and other digital collectibles. 

Solana has recently been recognised as a emerging strong competitor to Ethereum due to its low gas (transaction) fees.

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Why use Solana vs Ethereum?

Most of the major NFTs known worldwide such as Crypto Punks or Crypto Kitties are projects built on the Ethereum network. But thanks to these popular NFTs, they paved the way for other networks such as Solana to create their own NFT marketplaces similar to the infamous OpenSea on the Ethereum network. 

When NFT’s grew in popularity on Ethereum it shot up the gas fees and now when you make a transaction on OpenSea you will need to pay anywhere between $15-$200 in gas (transaction) fees. Whereas on Solana you only need to pay $0.10 - $3 in gas fees. This is because Solana doesn’t have as high of traffic as Ethereum and runs at a much lower cost. 

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About Solana

Solana is a next-generation high performance blockchain protocol designed to support large-scale decentralized applications. The native cryptocurrency of the Solana network is called SOL and it is used to pay for transaction fees and other computational costs. The Solana protocol achieves high performance by using a unique architecture that allows it to process transactions in parallel without compromising security. This makes it well suited for applications that require fast and scalable transaction processing, such as payments, exchanges, and games.

The Solana team is led by CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, a veteran software engineer who previously worked on large-scale distributed systems at Qualcomm and Google. The team also includes other experienced engineers from companies such as Facebook, Qualcomm, and Intel.

Final Thoughts

Solana has quickly emerged as a major player in the NFT world and offers some of the lowest transaction fees currently available. It also supports popular projects such as Frakt and Galactic Gecko Space Garage, while its native token SOL is gaining recognition amongst crypto investors. If you’re looking to buy or sell NFTs, then Solana-based NFT marketplaces are worth exploring.

However, please note that some of these platforms  are still in their early stages and may take longer to reflect on their platform. Do your own research before investing or using any platform.