NFT Sales Boom on Cardano, Solana and Polygon as Ethereum Slumps

Summary

• Ethereum remains the most popular blockchain for minting NFTs, but smaller blockchains like Cardano and Solana have seen increases in sales recently.
• Cardano briefly overtook Polygon as the fourth-most popular blockchain by NFT sales volume.
• Solana experienced a jump in sales due to the high demand of Mad Lads, contributing to a 129% increase in sales volume over the past seven days.

Rising Sales Volume on Smaller Blockchains

While Ethereum remains by far the most popular blockchain for minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs), other layer 1 blockchains and layer 2 networks have recently had small bumps in NFT sales. According to data from CryptoSlam, layer 1 blockchain Cardano, whose token is ADA, briefly overtook Ethereum scaling platform Polygon early on Monday as the fourth-most popular blockchain by NFT sales volume. The bump seems to have been led by interest in two projects, Goofy Gophers and Spacebudz, that have had over 185,000 ADA (about $70,000) in trading volume in the last 24 hours, according to CNFT.io.

Solana’s Popularity

Other blockchains including Solana (SOL) have had growing sales volume over the past seven days. Solana experienced a jump in sales, unique buyers and unique sellers on April 22 due to the release of Mad Lads which had such high demand it had to delay its mint. The mad dash for Mad Lads contributed over $8 million of the $9.9 million total sales on April 22 – a number not seen since January according to Crypto Slam. Ultimately this resulted in an overall 129% increase in Solana’s sales volume over these 7 days.

Polygon’s Increase

Polygon has also experienced a rise in its own NFT related sale volumes over recent days according to Dune dashboard analytics. This can be attributed variously to new marketplaces appearing such as Mintable who are leveraging Polygon’s low fees and fast transactions times or existing platforms such as Sorare who are actively ramping up their usage of Polygon’s Layer 2 solutions instead of Ethereum’s mainnet capacity issues which can lead to higher transaction costs or longer confirmation times depending on network load levels.

Conclusion

Overall smaller blockchains have experienced interesting bumps lately when it comes to NFT activity with Cardano temporarily becoming one of the top four platforms followed by growth in both Solana and Polygon’s respective sale volumes across these same periods too. These bumps could suggest an increased focus away from Ethereum where fees remain high and transaction times relatively slow compared with newer alternative solutions available elsewhere