The massive rise in the crypto market in August last year triggered an overall increase in different parts of the market. Aside from centralized digital assets, the DeFi sector also has seen some tokens respond to positive market moves. One distinct sector of the market that was not in the limelight before the rise was the NFT sector. During this period, the market saw an increase in a wide range of Ethereum NFTs, particularly CryptoPunks.
While Ethereum is responsible for most transactions in the sector, Solana, a stiff competitor, is challenging the blockchain. This is primarily because Solana is easing in and filling some lapses, such as high transaction fees and congestion that has riddled Ethereum.
The Solana native token, SOL, saw a rise all through august before seeing a slight drop which was said to be due to the downtime in the network. Even at that, SOL has benefited immensely from the collection of NFT on the Solana platform. In this article, we will be looking at NFTs and how to buy them using the Solana platform.
What are NFTs?
NFTs are unique tokens that show proof that a person owns a digital item on a blockchain. Over the last few months that the NFT craze has overtaken the market, people have bought and sold different digital items on the blockchain. Ranging from arts to music and other things, most people now use NFTs as their profile pictures. Significant pieces of NFTs have been sold at excellent rates on Solana, adding to the rising trading volume on the blockchain. The most notable was when one Degenerate Ape NFT sold for about $1.1 million SOL on the platform.
How To Buy NFTs on Solana
The major thing that differentiates buying NFTs on Ethereum from Solana is that users can only use SOL to purchase them. Also, the network does not allow users to link their Ethereum based wallet, MetaMask, to the platform when making the purchase. Below is a quick guide on how traders can set up their Solana wallet and use it to purchase NFTs on the Solana platform.
Choose your Solana wallet
Since the usual Ethereum based wallet used to buy NFTs on Etheruem will not work, users need to choose a Solana wallet. There are many good wallets out there, and users can use a browser extension or other apps dedicated for this period. A very popular wallet that traders can use to carry out this activity is the Phantom wallet. Asides from Phantom, Solflare is another good wallet that traders can use for this purpose. Other worthy mentions are Trust Wallet and Atomic Wallet.
In this write-up, we will be making use of the Phantom wallet. To begin the process, you will be required to add it to your google chrome or brave browser as an extension. After that, you will need to write down a 12 worded seed phrase to recover your wallet. In the next step, you will set your password, re-enter your password, and you will be allowed into the wallet. One thing that you have to be careful about is exposing your seed phrase. Anybody with the 12 groups of words can access your wallet and make away with your funds.
Buy some SOL tokens
The next step is purchasing the SOL tokens that you will use to purchase your NFT. With the Phantom Wallet, you can get the tokens in some ways and move them into your wallet. A perfect option is buying the tokens from a verified crypto exchange like Binance, and transferring them to your wallet. Another option is to buy USDT from a crypto exchange and send them to your Phantom wallet. Phantom has an in-house exchange where you will be able to change your USDT to SOL and other tokens on the Solana blockchain.
Enter The Market And Purchase Your NFT
Once you have finalized the steps above, you can enter a Solana-based marketplace to purchase an NFT using the SOL tokens in your wallet. Solanart offers users a wide range of NFT collections. Even though Solanart is an NFT marketplace, it does not work like other typical marketplaces. Works listed in the marketplace are curated because it is not an open marketplace like the famous Ethereum marketplace, OpenSea.
Another marketplace is DigitalEyes, the market famed for producing the Steve Harvey-fond Solana Monkey Business. To purchase an NFT from the marketplaces listed above, you will have to connect your Solana wallet with the site, buy the NFT of your choice, and approve the transaction. Compared to Ethereum, Solana offers a faster and cheaper transaction. The Phantom wallet also allows you to view all the NFT collections you have bought in the wallet. Besides purchasing NFTs, traders can also use the wallet on the Solana network protocols like Saber and the likes.