Solana blockchain and my first experience there; SolSisters

Many of the most talked about NFT collections are on the Ethereum mainnet blockchain. However, there are more crypto protocols than Ethereum that can process the metadata and provide the decentralized features that define NFTs. Among those other chains include Tezos, Wax, Cardano, Flow, Polygon, Binance, Solana and more. Most of them are Ethereum-based chains, while others, such as Binance are completely different. Today, I’d like to look at the Solana blockchain, what makes it unique and some collections that can be found there.

Solana is a proof-of-stake chain, making its energy consumption per transaction significantly lower than that of Ethereum. Many projects that are spinning up around efforts involving environmental concerns are choosing Solana as their native chain.

Recently, I’ve delved into the Solana space with my first NFT project there, SolSisters. This collection had their presale sell on in minutes on October 2, 2021. The public sale was on October 15, 2021 with a 2 day exclusive trading window on the Solanart platform. Mint price was 1.19 SOL with perks and benefits for those who had been able to mint at the presale. One of the more unique features of the drop was that it was limited to one mint per transaction. This prevented a sell out in seconds, limits bot activity, reduces the load on the website and keeps the window open longer for individuals to get in and be a part of the project, rather than automated systems. This is the first I’ve heard of a drop be this strict and, per the Discord chatter, it sounds like it was quite successful at allowing interested collectors to claim. Even with this restriction, the collection was at 55% sold after one hour.

In addition to the 1 per transaction restriction, there was a decision made to burn the remaining supply if not sold out in 24 hours. I had not heard of this strategy before — probably because my experience has mostly been on ETH and depending on how it was set up, might incur high gas costs. In the end, the project minted 7,356 pieces. Personally, I didn’t find out about the project until about a month after mint, so I was not able to get in from the beginning.

This project is strongly based around the Discord community it has created and the developers are in constant communication. There are fun competitions as well as an ambitious roadmap that includes token drops for metaverse integration. Currently, there is a scavenger hunt going on; many of the higher point value activities involve going out into the community and giving back. Other activities promote an active life style, while some are just fun.

I look forward to continue being part of this community and seeing what else there is to come, as I sit here and listen to the Lo-Fi channel in the Discord.