Apes and monkeys continue to dominate thriving Solana NFT space

Solana Monkey Business and the Degenerate Ape Academy continue to reign supreme as the burgeoning Solana ecosystem begins to attract NFT enthusiasts.

The primate-based collections have established themselves as the ‘blue-chip’ projects on Solana based on their market caps and floor prices which overshadow the remainder of the Solana NFT market.

Data from Solanalysis shows that Solana Monkey Business (MBS) is the leading NFT project on Solana with a market cap of $100m and a floor price of 94 SOL ($13.4k).

The Degenerate Ape Academy takes second spot with a market cap of $87m and floor of 57.5 SOL ($8.2k).

Solana MBS has recently introduced a native marketplace for its collection, while the Ape Academy uses leading marketplace Solanart.

Both projects have seen considerable social interest on Twitter and Discord, and have attracted high-profile buyers including KSI and, somewhat surprisingly, TV host Steve Harvey.

Harvey changed his Twitter profile photo to a Solana Monkey Business NFT last Thursday, but has since changed it back.

The Solana Monkey Business team is in the process of forming an ‘NFT DAO‘ for the community to ‘enrich the Solana ecosystem’ for MBS holders.

The Degenerate Ape Academy has also attracted high-profile buyers in the form of VC firm Moonrock Capital, which recently paid 5,980 SOL ($1.1m) for the 13th rarest ape in the collection.

Like the MBS team, the project is forming a DAO for the community to become members of the ‘Ape Council‘.

While the Solana NFT space continues to grow and attract new users, it has come under criticism for its lack of authenticity and the number of copycat projects that appear each week.

Many in the NFT space, including Solana MBS holders, have commented that some Solana-based NFT projects are mere ‘cash-grabs’ and hold no inherent value or utility other than the fact that they’re available on Solana.

A key example is SolBlocks, which used Fidenza’s creator Tyler Hobbs’ art-generation code without authorization and created a ‘copycat’ project on Solana.

Hobbs’ has asked the SolBlocks team to stop using his program but the team continues to defend its use of the images.