Solana’s Top NFT Projects DeGods and Y00ts to Migrate Chains

Following months of rumors that DeGods and Y00ts, two of the top Solana non-fungible token (NFT) projects, will leave the SOL ecosystem, the projects' teams confirmed the migration on Twitter on Sunday.

The team announced that DeGods would be transferring to Ethereum and Y00ts will be moving to Polygon in early Q1.

“There's an argument to be made that [DeGods] has topped out on Solana,” the project's leader, Rohun Vora, also known as Frank, remarked on Twitter Spaces on Monday. “It's difficult to accept, but it's been difficult for us to develop at the rate we want to grow. If Ethereum is where we need to go to continue expanding, that's what we need to do.”

The collections are two of the most talked-about in the Solana NFT market, with DeGods demanding the highest floor price in the ecosystem at 515 SOL (approximately $5,750) at the time of writing. Y00ts, DeGod's sister PFP collection launched this fall, has a price of 148 SOL (about $1,660).

Following the news, sales of DeGods increased, with the collection's floor price climbing 12% as of Monday. Y00ts sales have been reasonably stable, with the floor increasing by only 5 SOL (about $55). According to Magic Eden data, sales of DeGods and Y00ts accounted for approximately 70% of total Solana NFT sales volume in the week preceding the announcement.

Months of animosity on NFT Twitter preceded the relocation, with some builders in the Solana NFT realm decrying the withdrawal while the collection's holders mostly applauded it.

Rumors surfaced on Twitter in early December during the Art Basel festival in Miami that the DeGods crew had approached the Solana Foundation for $5 million to stay on SOL. The Solana Foundation confirmed the sum, but the DeGods team declined to comment on the request's legitimacy.

Another win for Polygon

The transition of Y00ts to Polygon came at a cost. According to a DeGods spokesman, Polygon paid for the transfer with a grant from their partnership fund, and the terms of the arrangement would be made public shortly.

Vora stated that the grant will last “one year, maybe two,” and that it will not be paid in full. It's unclear what will happen when the funding expires.

“We have a lot of milestones to hit,” Vora remarked. “And the grant isn't as large as many believe.”

The migration is the latest in Polygon's relationship winning streak; in the last year, the layer 2 blockchain has attracted partners as diverse as Starbucks, Nike, Reddit, Instagram, and DraftKings.

DeGod's transition to Ethereum and Polygon may become complex on the backend. When projects go multi-chain, it's usually in the style of Doodles, who are considering launching Doodles 2 on a layer 2 blockchain while preserving its original collection on Ethereum.

The technical aspects of the migration have not yet been released, but the team has stated that Y00tpoints, a token provided to Y00ts holders who stake their NFTs, will be transferred as well.

“What is the worst-case situation here？ ”A bridge contract exploit,“ Vora said of the move's technical difficulties. ”We want to do [the migration] as quickly as possible, aiming for Q1, but we need to make sure it's airtight. Bridges are notorious for problems like these.

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