Comparing Polygon and Solana: Post-2023 NFT Summer Analysis

All about the 2023 NFT Summer

The entire NFT market boomed in March 2023, when trading volumes surged. This was evident from The Block’s data, which showed that most blockchains’ NFT trade volumes skyrocketed.

To pinpoint, let’s take a closer look at Polygon and Solana specifically. Santiment’s chart revealed that Polygon’s NFT trade volume spiked to nearly $17 million during the concluding days of March, which marked the beginning of the NFT summer.

During that period, Polygon’s trading volume touched the $18 million mark. A similar uptrend was also noticed in terms of the number of trade counts.

Not only Polygon, but Solana’s chart also looked very similar as its metrics also soared. Solana’s NFT trade count and trade volume in USD spiked substantially during that period.

The only differentiator between both blockchains was their native tokens’ price actions. Notably, both tokens witnessed a decline in their price during that period, thanks to the bearish market condition.

However, during the latter part, SOL reacted differently. This was evident from the fact that the token’s price started to move during the concluding days of June, allowing it to get a spot on the list of the top 10 cryptos by market capitalization.

Tides have now changed direction

The good days did not last for long, as the NFT market’s popularity has dropped since the third quarter of this year. The hype and high metrics settled down as the NFT market’s trading volume sank, and the trend remained the same till the time of this writing.

For reference, DappRadar’s data revealed that Bored Ape Yacht Club [BAYC], one of the most popular NFT collections across the globe, witnessed a drop of over 15% in its average price over the last 30 days.

Y00ts, yet another popular NFT collection, also had a similar fate, as its average price and trading volume dropped by nearly 40% and 70%, respectively. This suggested that the community’s interest in NFTs was on the decline, which was concerning for the overall ecosystem.

Moreover, a few months ago, a popular NFT marketplace also ceased its operation. Just two years after its eagerly awaited launch, Recur ceased operations despite a $50 million fundraising round and noteworthy investors.

CRYPTOSLAM’s data revealed that the downtrend was continuing. Polygon’s NFT sales volume and total transactions dropped by 50% over the last 30 days.

Not only Polygon, but Solana’s metrics also dropped. Its sales volume and total transactions plummeted by 14% and 8%, respectively.

Will Polygon and Solana’s NFT ecosystems revive?

Though the NFT summer might have ended a few weeks ago, the possibility of a newfound interest in Polygon and Solana NFTs in the near future can’t be ruled out. This seemed likely, considering the efforts made by the blockchain in expanding their respective ecosystems.

For instance, Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, recently revealed some noteworthy news.

In a spot of good news, Pokemon Cards Pack, an NFT collection, recently sold hundreds of NFTs within hours of its launch. Solana Daily also revealed a list highlighting the top-performing NFT collections of the week in its ecosystem.

As per the tweet, The Heist was the most traded NFT collection last week, followed by VTOPIA and Famous Fox.

Despite the above developments, the network’s tokens behaved differently. Notably, CoinMarketCap’s data revealed that SOL was up by more than 3.52% in the last seven days. At press time, it was trading at $19.71 with a market cap of over $8.1 billion.

On the other hand, MATIC was down by 3% in just the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, it was valued at $0.5233 with a market cap of over $4.8 billion.