Solana (SOL) had its first non-fungible token (NFT) sale over $1 million with the sale of a Degenerate Ape for 5,980 SOL. The buyer is the British fund Moonrock Capital.
An NFT Solana sold for more than 1 million dollars
The investment company Moonrock Capital bought on Saturday a non-fungible token (NFT) belonging to the Degenerate Ape Academy collection for 5,980 SOL or about 1.1 million dollars. This is a record for an NFT created on the Solana blockchain (SOL).
Moonrock purchased the Degen Ape (#7225), a zombie version of a monkey with a halo, a gold tooth and a brain in its mouth. This monkey is the 13th rarest monkey in the collection, according to HowRare.is. The company also acquired the 18th rarest SolPunk, a version of the CryptoPunks on Solana for 1,388 SOL or about $260,000.
During the launch of the Degen Ape Academy project, the collection of 10,000 unique images of monkeys was sold out in just 8 minutes, with the total volume even reaching nearly 96,000 SOL or about $6 million. Currently, the minimum price to acquire a degenerate monkey is at least 72 SOL ($13,000).
Celebrities have even adopted Solana’s NFTs. TV host Steve Harvey changed his Twitter profile picture to an NFT Monkey Business last Thursday.
An ecosystem in turmoil
This record sale marks a paradigm shift for NFTs. Since their inception, they have generally been created and sold on the Ethereum blockchain (ETH), where the majority of value and interest remains today. But with high fees on the network becoming increasingly expensive, some investors have turned to other blockchains such as Solana and Tezos (XTZ).
New marketplaces have been launched such as Digital Eyes, Solanart and SolSea. According to Solanalysis, NFT exchanges on Solana reportedly generated a total of $50 million in the last 7 days.
Currently, the most popular projects on Solana are Degenerate Ape Academy, Solana Monkey Business, SolPunks and Aurory.