Polygon, Cardano and Solana NFT Sales Rise as Ethereum NFT Sales Slump

While the Ethereum blockchain remains by far the most popular choice for minting non-fungible tokens (NFT), other layer 1 blockchains and layer 2 networks have recently had small bumps in NFT sales.

According to data from CryptoSlam, layer 1 blockchain Cardano, whose token is ADA, briefly overtook Ethereum scaling platform Polygon early on Monday as the fourth-most popular blockchain by NFT sales volume.

As of Monday afternoon, Cardano had slid back into the sixth spot behind BNB and Polygon, according to Crypto Slam, although its sales were up 86% over the past 24 hours. The bump seems to have been led by interest in two projects, Goofy Gophers and Spacebudz, that have had over 185,000 ADA (about $70,000) in trading volume in the last 24 hours, according to CNFT.io.

Other blockchains, including Solana (SOL), have had growing sales volume over the past seven days. Solana experienced a jump in sales, unique buyers and unique sellers on April 22, largely due to the release of Mad Lads, which had such high demand it had to delay its mint. The mad dash for the Mad Lads contributed over $8 million of the $9.9 million in sales on April 22 – a high not seen since January, according to Crypto Slam. Overall, Solana's sales volume has grown by 129% over the past seven days.

Meanwhile, Polygon has experienced a rise in sales volume over the past few days, according to a Dune dashboard compiled by NFT researcher Sealaunch. It appears that NFT collection Y00ts, which recently migrated from Solana to Polygon, has been driving much of the movement on OpenSea and Magic Eden.

The growth of NFT sales across alternative blockchains comes as sales of Ethereum NFTs have shrunk in recent days. The sales volume on Ethereum is down 12% over the past seven days, according to Crypto Slam, while the number of unique buyers and sellers on Ethereum has also dipped.

It appears the overall NFT market has cooled amid an extended crypto winter, with a handful of collections eliciting brief spikes in trading over the past few months. According to a Dune dashboard by SeaLaunch, the number of unique users across top NFT marketplaces including Blur, OpenSea and LooksRare fell to 7,805 on April 19, a low not seen since July 2021. The number of sales across NFT marketplaces also fell sharply, with 16,149 sales recorded on April 19, according to the same data from Dune. The last time the number of sales was that low was in November 2021. Numbers have recovered slightly over the past few days.