Key takeaways:
- Prominent blogger and hacker Jane Manchun Wong found clues of a potential Solana integration by reverse-engineering the OpenSea website
- Leaked screenshots show the option for the popular Solana wallet, Phantom, and display Solana among the current selection of available chains on OpenSea
- NFT market has exploded in the past year, generating over $23 billion in trading volume
While the world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, is primarily hosting digital collections created on Ethereum, newly-leaked screenshots suggest that support for Solana-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) might be coming soon.
Renowned hacker found evidence for Solana support in OpenSea’s hidden code
Jane Manchun Wong, a prominent blogger and hacker who earned her fame by uncovering hidden features buried in the code of some of the more popular online products and services, has shared her findings on OpenSea’s Solana integration in a Tuesday’s Twitter post.
The leaked OpenSea screenshots show support for the widely-used Solana wallet, Phantom, while also displaying Solana among the list of supported blockchains, next to Ethereum, Polygon, and Klaytn.
Talking to Decrypt, Wong unveiled that she managed to acquire the images by reverse-engineering the OpenSea’s webpage and added that whoever was working on the new features went to great lengths to “try to hide it.”
OpenSea spokesperson told Decrypt that Wong’s revelation is “old speculation,” and said that the leading NFT marketplace will share further information about Solana integration “when we have something to say.”
NFTs exploded in 2021, the trend continues this year
According to blockchain analytics firm DappRadar, the NFT market generated more than $23 billion in trading volume in 2021, with the vast majority of NFT activity taking place on the Ethereum blockchain. In the first three weeks of 2022, NFT trading volume on Ethereum surpassed $9.5 billion, while Solana-based NFT activity generated “only” $157 million, according to data from The Block.
The growing popularity of NFTs has led to OpenSea having its best month to date only two weeks into January, handily beating previous trading volume, user activity, and fee-generated records from last August. Additionally, the recently concluded $300 million financing round has raised the Silicon Valley startup’s value to more than $13.3 billion.
Earlier today, YouTube CEO wrote in a letter to the community that the video-streaming giant is considering adding support for NFTs. The news comes a week after Twitter unveiled deeper NFT integration on its platform, and the announcement of Meta’s Facebook working on NFT features.
