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DeLabs provides news detail on Ethereum and Polygon's moves, along with an exclusive breakdown of the bridging procedure
Last updated Mar 2, 2023 at 08:26 PM
Posted Mar 2, 2023 at 02:54 PM
DeGods, the most valuable NFT project on the Solana blockchain, has a reputation for surprising announcements, such as updating their artwork, purchasing a majority stake in a BIG3 basketball team, and even putting some of their previously destroyed NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. The creators of DeGods, the popular NFT project on the Solana blockchain, surprised everyone with a major announcement last Christmas: they are leaving Solana for another platform.
DeLabs founder Rohun "Frank" Vora announced on December 25 that DeGods NFTs would be "bridged" over to Ethereum—the most popular and valuable NFT market, with initiatives like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks—in his latest "social experiment."
On the other hand, the y00ts project will be moved to Polygon, a scaling network built on Ethereum that has gained popularity with major brands like Starbucks, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Nike. The DUST ecosystem token that is used in both projects will also be available on both Ethereum and Polygon through a bridging process. Since then, very few specifics about the migration have been made public, but for the first time, Frank and Kevin Henrikson, CEOs of Dust Labs, have exclusively discussed the reasons for the move and explained the upcoming process.
The Solana blockchain was flourishing and the market for NFTs (non-fungible tokens) was expanding quickly at the time DeGods was first introduced in late 2021. However, the price of SOL (Solana's cryptocurrency) had fallen significantly by last summer, when DeGods became the most valuable large-scale NFT project on the platform and the NFT market as a whole was in decline.
By late December, when DeGods announced their decision to leave Solana, SOL had dropped almost 97% from its peak price. Before the announcement, Frank (presumably one of the DeGods team members) had mentioned the possibility of migration due to Solana's struggles in the latter part of the year, but this was met with significant resistance from the community.
Henrikson, one of the team members behind DeGods, acknowledged that Solana was a good starting point for the project due to the network's tools and the relatively new NFT community. However, he also said that DeLabs had bigger plans for the project that would eventually require them to move to the Ethereum ecosystem, despite the success they had had on Solana with their 10,000 NFT profile picture (PFP) project.
Additionally, he emphasized that for DeGods to become the most successful and well-known NFT collection worldwide, they would have to be on Ethereum. Right now, a DeGods NFT on Solana costs around $11,500 worth of SOL on the Magic Eden marketplace. However, Yuga Labs' Bored Ape Yacht Club PFPs on Ethereum start at a much higher price, about 10 times more expensive. Even though it will be challenging, DeLabs is motivated by the opportunity to compete with Ethereum's big players and become a popular and successful NFT collection.
According to Frank, DeLabs purposefully kept its plans under wraps before the transition, but the migration will mark the beginning of the project's next phase. He declared, "DeGods Season begins when we reach ETH, and y00ts Season begins when we reach Polygon." Henrikson added that moving the projects from Solana to their new networks will also showcase Dust Labs' software and technology. The goal of the company's founding was to be "all-chain or multi-chain."