Metaplex Raises $46 Million As Michael Jordan Abets Solana NFTs Ascent

NFTs have been one of the most successful and controversial fronts of crypto. While many invest in them in the hopes of lucking out into a million-dollar NFT, others believe this is nothing short of gambling.

But despite the differences, this market continues to flourish.

Solana and NFTs

Undeterred by the bearish sentiment of the crypto market over the last few weeks, traders continued to mint, buy and sell NFTs in good volume. In fact, the month of January broke the record for the highest volume and Opensea recorded $3.8 billion, $400 million higher than it had in August 2021.

Thus the rising demand for NFTs has led to a rise in demand for protocols that enable some of the biggest NFTs such as Degenerate Ape Academy.

This is why the NFT producing protocol Metaplex on Solana, went through a funding round where it ended up raising over $46 million through multiple investment firms including Solana Ventures.

Along with them, the funding also came from over 90 different individual investors one of which is NBA legend Michael Jordan.

This funding will play a huge role in the expansion of Metaplex in not only the NFT arena but also in the Metaverse arena which Metaplex aims to tap in the near future.

Furthermore, recently, even Mike Tyson announced his upcoming 10,000 Iron Pigeons NFTs for Ex Populus, the Metaverse-based trading card game built on Solana.

10,000 unique Iron Pigeons… coming soon to the @ExPopulus trading card gamehttps://t.co/mlUiimBEJY pic.twitter.com/if1w0iy99r

— Mike Tyson (@MikeTyson) January 17, 2022

Solana vs Ethereum

Developments as such, associated with names as such propel crypto into the mainstream. This makes Solana a formidable competition for Ethereum in the NFT space.

As it is the network is already performing better than Ethereum in terms of net flows thanks to its social rise.

While Ethereum registered outflows worth almost $30 million, Solana posted $5.4 million inflows, higher than other altcoins.

Regardless, both the assets price movement continues to be substandard thanks to the broader market cues and red candles continue to lead the way.