Solana NFT sells for $2.1 million, breaking previous network record

An NFT from SolanaMonkeyBusiness, a collection of 5,000 NFTs minted on the Solana blockchain, just sold an NFT for 13,027 SOL (~$2.1 million) — making it the most expensive Solana-based NFT to date. 

The SolMonkey in question is #1355. It’s the rarest NFT in the collection, according to the NFT rarity tool HowRare.Is, complete with a skeleton body (2.42% of SolMonkeys have this trait), an orange jacket (1.06%) and a bejeweled crown (0.02%). 

The first Solana-based NFT to sell for over $1 million occurred just three weeks ago, providing further evidence that the Ethereum blockchain is losing its dominion over NFTs. 

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Record high transaction fees have plagued the Ethereum blockchain since May of this year, The Block’s data dashboard shows. 

These market conditions have pushed users into alternative blockchains such as Solana. It’s native token SOL experienced all-time highs in early August and surpassed $1 billion market capitalization on October 1.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.