The Most Promising Solana Ecosystem Projects

Solana is an L1 blockchain, currently ranked fourth among the largest blockchains by market capitalization, only trailing behind BNB, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.

The Solana ecosystem is generally segmented into three main categories:

• DeFi and lending protocols;
• Staking platforms;
• NFT marketplaces.

An in-depth exploration of the first category was provided in a previous article, highlighting 5 DeFi platforms on the Solana blockchain that may reward their users with retroactive airdrops. Notably, some, such as Drift, have yet to conduct their airdrop.

So, which Solana-based projects could become the next favorites among users?

Orca

Orca stands as a decentralized exchange built on the automated market maker (AMM) model. It prioritizes design to ensure a user-centric interface. 

Orca champions the motto: “The DEX for people, not programs.” Source: orca.so

Orca's distinctive feature is its Whirlpools—concentrated liquidity functionality that allows users to set a price range within which their tokens are made available for AMM transactions. This innovative approach is akin to that employed by Uniswap.

ORCA, the protocol's native token, was introduced in August 2021. It functions as a governance tool via OrcaDAO. As of now, ORCA boasts a market capitalization of $221 million.

Solend

Solend presents a decentralized lending platform, facilitating the borrowing or lending of various assets. It's the seventh-ranked project on Solana by TVL (total value locked) — $161.84 million.

Solend’s TVL over the project's lifespan. Source: defillama.com

Usage of the platform entails:

• Accessing Solend through a crypto wallet on the Solana network, such as Phantom;
• Selecting an option: either to lend or borrow assets;
• Lenders contribute funds to the liquidity pool, while borrowers provide collateral and request a loan.

Solend was launched via an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) in November 2021, raising $26.2 million, with participants seeing a maximum return of 263% from the token sale.

Marinade Finance

Marinade Finance’s logo. Source: marinade.finance

Marinade Finance is a staking automation platform that monitors all Solana validators, delegating assets to the top 100 among them. Additionally, Marinade offers liquid staking options. Regardless of the choice, staking is facilitated through the same validators.

Advantages of staking with Marinade Finance include:

• A completely non-custodial solution, ensuring only the user has access to their assets;
• Staking delegation across more than 100 validators;
• Fee-free staking and unstaking processes.

Marinade Finance enables instant withdrawal of tokens from staking. The staking protocol is also integrated with the previously mentioned Orca.

Mad Lads

Mad Lads is an NFT collection on the Solana blockchain, created by Coral, featuring 10,000 humanoid character illustrations. Each artwork in Mad Lads comes with unique attributes like rarity, gender, expression, face type, hairstyle, etc.

NFTs from the Mad Lads collection. Source: techopedia.com

Mad Lads NFTs are tokenized applications (xNFTs). This means that each piece of art contains embedded code that can be executed by the supporting application. In the case of Mad Lads, it’s the Backpack crypto wallet, also developed by Coral.

Owners of Mad Lads NFTs can stake their tokens to receive rewards in the form of “gold coins.” Although the exact purpose of these coins is unknown, rumors suggest they may be used in a future loyalty program.

Tensor

Tensor Homepage. Source: tensor.trade

Tensor is the largest NFT marketplace operating on the Solana blockchain, processing over 26,300 transactions daily with a trading volume of nearly $4 million.

Tensor was the first NFT marketplace to combine AMM with NFTs. It allows for the auctioning of collections and instantly provides liquidity to NFT sellers. Furthermore, Tensor does not charge fees from makers (those who provide liquidity) and only charges a 1% fee from takers (those who remove liquidity).

The project acts as a liquidity aggregator, finding favorable NFT prices and offering users the best deals based on supply and demand. The markets Tensor uses for this purpose include TensorSwap, HadeSwap, HyperSpace, MagicEden, and Solanart.