Solanart was one of the first major NFT exchanges on #Solana. It has a record of behavior that does not live up to community standards.
We should demand better if we are serious about improving Solana and the onboarding of the next wave of users.🧵👇 #nft #solanacommunity
We should demand better if we are serious about improving Solana and the onboarding of the next wave of users.🧵👇 #nft #solanacommunity
Recently many have alleged that Solanart engage in shady, neglectful & cash grabbing behavior. I first covered this topic 3 months ago.
With many new entrants to Solana, not everyone was aware of this.
Interestingly, new stories have come to light.
With many new entrants to Solana, not everyone was aware of this.
Interestingly, new stories have come to light.
https://twitter.com/sainteclectic/status/1440319610503368719?s=20
I will focus on the facts in this thread.
The intention is to share information, then you be the judge as a community and decide what is acceptable for our ecosystem.
Thank you to all of you who reached out - you are making the community a better place.
The intention is to share information, then you be the judge as a community and decide what is acceptable for our ecosystem.
Thank you to all of you who reached out - you are making the community a better place.
A. The team
Up until recently, Solanart has been a 4 man team, consisting of Endeavor, @notashwkn, Kotex & @Oscarmikee (Whitey) + a couple of mods. Whitey was also responsible for the creation of $SAMO, dog coin whose price trajectory you can see in this attached picture.
Up until recently, Solanart has been a 4 man team, consisting of Endeavor, @notashwkn, Kotex & @Oscarmikee (Whitey) + a couple of mods. Whitey was also responsible for the creation of $SAMO, dog coin whose price trajectory you can see in this attached picture.
B. How much have they made?
There has been 4.5m◎ of volume traded on Solanart. At their fee of ~3% this their revenues total 136,111◎ (US$23.7m).
They also launched @PunksOnSolana and @BoldBadgers NFT raising US$5.3m. This totals ~$30m or ~$7m in revenue per employee.
There has been 4.5m◎ of volume traded on Solanart. At their fee of ~3% this their revenues total 136,111◎ (US$23.7m).
They also launched @PunksOnSolana and @BoldBadgers NFT raising US$5.3m. This totals ~$30m or ~$7m in revenue per employee.
C. What issues does the community have with Solanart?
I was asked by their new head of Marketing @0xAvast (who has been a positive breath of fresh air) to provide a list of issues that the community had with Solanart, so here goes:
I was asked by their new head of Marketing @0xAvast (who has been a positive breath of fresh air) to provide a list of issues that the community had with Solanart, so here goes:
1. Launched cash grab NFTs
2. Dropped their NFT communities immediately after collecting 80,000◎ from mint
3. Engaged in suspicious transactions
4. Lack of UI/UX improvements
5. Appalling treatment of newly listing projects
6. Listing suspicious NFTs
7. Critics silenced on twtr
2. Dropped their NFT communities immediately after collecting 80,000◎ from mint
3. Engaged in suspicious transactions
4. Lack of UI/UX improvements
5. Appalling treatment of newly listing projects
6. Listing suspicious NFTs
7. Critics silenced on twtr
1. Launched cash grab NFTs
Solanart raised 30,000◎ for Solpunks & 50,000◎ for bold badgers. Save for a Solpunks x WSB airdrop, both communities were neglected almost immediately the day after.
Solanart raised 30,000◎ for Solpunks & 50,000◎ for bold badgers. Save for a Solpunks x WSB airdrop, both communities were neglected almost immediately the day after.
@solpunks was a low effort straight clone of Larva Lab’s Cryptopunks with the backgrounds replaced with Solana colors. It did not even have its own discord, being housed in Solanart’s server. It had very little community support and fought hard to form its own @SolPunksDAO.
@BoldBadgers was their next project a few months later. Community member @DemonCollector covers in excruciating detail how they were neglected the second the Solanart team finished the mint and cashed out their 50,000◎ ($4.4m):
https://twitter.com/DemonColIector/status/1474409556272771073?s=20
Most mints were a disaster back then and this one was no different:
- Site overloaded
- People waited 1.5hrs to get an announcement minting would start in 30mins
- Bait & switch: mint link broken, but correct link posted elsewhere in discord
- Sollet UI had a broken drop down
- Site overloaded
- People waited 1.5hrs to get an announcement minting would start in 30mins
- Bait & switch: mint link broken, but correct link posted elsewhere in discord
- Sollet UI had a broken drop down
Let’s excuse the mint because minting is still a flawed process today.
Did things get better after? Well after they raised 50,000◎ they told the Badger community they did not have time for them. The team worked “20H a day on Solanart”, overwhelmed with “other responsibilities”
Did things get better after? Well after they raised 50,000◎ they told the Badger community they did not have time for them. The team worked “20H a day on Solanart”, overwhelmed with “other responsibilities”
No doubt developing isn’t easy.
So why raise $4m in funds from people on a NFT project when you’re struggling to manage your own auction site?
No hires @ the time & the team cashed out the ◎ mostly to FTX exchange.
Pure opportunistic greed.
So why raise $4m in funds from people on a NFT project when you’re struggling to manage your own auction site?
No hires @ the time & the team cashed out the ◎ mostly to FTX exchange.
Pure opportunistic greed.
2. Dropped the Bold Badger NFT community immediately after kmaking 50k◎
There were community outcries, so the Solanart team tried placating them, teasing a $SOLANART/Badger utilty token. The next day a roadmap was leaked, there was no token. No promises delivered. Price crashed
There were community outcries, so the Solanart team tried placating them, teasing a $SOLANART/Badger utilty token. The next day a roadmap was leaked, there was no token. No promises delivered. Price crashed
Those community members like @DemonCollector that stuck around, tried to create a DAO and ask for funding and received 500◎ or 1% of funds from the mint, the other 99% having been cashed out by team members to FTX (scroll down to 4 months ago to trace): solscan.io/account/E6dkaY…
Solanart did eventually implement staking which led to reduced site fees... 3.5 months later... after much community badgering (pun intended).
They 'generously' offered 0% fees if you held 100 badgers, later caving to pressure to reduce it to 20. Communication remained sporadic.
They 'generously' offered 0% fees if you held 100 badgers, later caving to pressure to reduce it to 20. Communication remained sporadic.
3. Engaged in suspicious transactions
Buying their own NFTs at very inflated prices:
- In the early days of Badgers, a wallet funded by Solanart bought 792◎ for 6 bold badgers, spending between 100-150◎ea ~6x the average price of ~20◎
Buying their own NFTs at very inflated prices:
- In the early days of Badgers, a wallet funded by Solanart bought 792◎ for 6 bold badgers, spending between 100-150◎ea ~6x the average price of ~20◎
In my previous thread I incorrectly said this was ~20% of that day’s volume and this was the only point Solanart raised in their thread, neglecting to address the many other points raised.
Like why its own exchange was buying the NFT it launched at 6x average prices - even if adjusted for rarities. They’ve since deleted those tweets and moved the info to a medium.
The implication is that they made these trades with a wallet funded directly with their fee wallet to record large ‘hero’ sales and drive market volume, generating FOMO as a wave of speculators hopped on board. Illegal? No, though they would be in regulated tradfi markets.
Wash trading of Solpunk #641
Solpunk#641 was washtraded between wallets. It was bought from the minter for 500◎ by Wallet 2, then sold 90 minutes later for 750◎. 3 weeks later it was transferred back to Wallet 2.
Solpunk#641 was washtraded between wallets. It was bought from the minter for 500◎ by Wallet 2, then sold 90 minutes later for 750◎. 3 weeks later it was transferred back to Wallet 2.
Solanart have since defended this by saying “we are not responsible for what buyers & sellers of our NFTs do”.
This is not direct evidence of Solanart being responsible, but it is suspiciously rich activity for an NFT of direct-ETH-clone provenance.
This is not direct evidence of Solanart being responsible, but it is suspiciously rich activity for an NFT of direct-ETH-clone provenance.
Not to mention the fact that the wallet had no problem paying 37.5◎ ($6.4k) in total auction fees direct to Solanart just to “wash” this trade. 7 mins after #641’s sale, the same wallet bought another Solpunk (#2241) for 300◎
This is just one example of many suspicious transactions linked to Solanart’s fee wallets & NFTs. There are plenty more transactions to dig into, all you need is to trace the “SOL Transfers” from the Solana Fee wallet for a list of other wallets to track: solscan.io/account/E6dkaY…
4. Lack of UI/UX updates
Having made close to $30m the team reinvested very little into improving their site. Sure, that’s their business decision. Links were often broken, people made incorrect purchases and their first upgrade was a site color change from blue to… purple blue.
Having made close to $30m the team reinvested very little into improving their site. Sure, that’s their business decision. Links were often broken, people made incorrect purchases and their first upgrade was a site color change from blue to… purple blue.
Post this there were some search box upgrades and it took them 4 months to finally implement a bid system. Of course it’s not the most well thought out of UI implementations, with them placing “accept bid” exceptionally close to the cancel button potentially tripping up people.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on them. It takes time to develop & build, right?
Remember, this team of four has made $30m and for 5 months failed to hire more people, barely improved their UI/UX all while raising 80k◎ ($5m then, $14m today) then dumping those communities.
Remember, this team of four has made $30m and for 5 months failed to hire more people, barely improved their UI/UX all while raising 80k◎ ($5m then, $14m today) then dumping those communities.
5. Appalling treatment of projects looking for listing
How have Solanart treated projects that looked to list on their exchange? They promised a listing for @thugbirdz only to say they were pausing listings. Then went ahead and listed everyone’s favorite rug @TheBearGangNFT
How have Solanart treated projects that looked to list on their exchange? They promised a listing for @thugbirdz only to say they were pausing listings. Then went ahead and listed everyone’s favorite rug @TheBearGangNFT
Again, this can be chalked up to business decisions - they’d want to list what’s most profitable and thats fair. It is not illegal, and also can be explained with how busy they were. It is, however, a common thread that they regularly mistreated projects who asked to list.
But wait, there’s more. Solanart had a practice of asking listing projects to send them one of their NFTs.
Other marketplaces didn’t require this, they only needed the hash list of the tokens. When projects questioned why this was necessary they strongarmed them into complying.
Other marketplaces didn’t require this, they only needed the hash list of the tokens. When projects questioned why this was necessary they strongarmed them into complying.
Some of their responses were “we do this all the time and you are the first to question it. We’ll return it, we always return them”. So the wallets were investigated and it turns out that they did not return many NFTs, many still sit across those wallets:
6. Listing suspicious projects
While there are rugs aplenty in Sol NFTs, Solana reached out to ask @DegenApeSociety about listing them - and then did. This project barely bothered to hide its shadiness
While there are rugs aplenty in Sol NFTs, Solana reached out to ask @DegenApeSociety about listing them - and then did. This project barely bothered to hide its shadiness
- Art and traits directly ripped from BAYC
- Discord filled with 40k bots in 3 days
- Discord restarted several times
- Rug Radar warnings on discord about this project
- Discord filled with 40k bots in 3 days
- Discord restarted several times
- Rug Radar warnings on discord about this project
Solanart did not even bother to do its diligence or the bare minimum on this.. In fact they were warned in their discord about the project being a rug alert. They were warned by several people in their discord over 5 days. They listed it anyway.
When asked about this Kotex shrugged it off, saying it was a “new employee” who mistakenly listed them and it was too late to do anything now. He also said “it’s pretty unfair to pin us alone when we’re the only one doing the effort of curating right now”.
This response highlights everything wrong with Solanart’s approach. There is no culture of doing things properly or doing things right for the community. Its principles are profit first, worry later, shrug off criticism.
7. Critic silenced on twitter
After @DemonCollector’s thread there was no response from the Solanart team. Incensed by this, @degen_inc called them out as bad actors in the Solana space. He has done this before across many rug projects but lived to tell the tale. Not so this time
After @DemonCollector’s thread there was no response from the Solanart team. Incensed by this, @degen_inc called them out as bad actors in the Solana space. He has done this before across many rug projects but lived to tell the tale. Not so this time
This time round his first Solanart tweet was reported and he was temporarily suspended. He deleted that tweet and a few hours later he was indefinitely suspended by @Twitter for 3 tweets he made about Solanart.
@degen_inc’s tweets are blunt, so he has to take responsibility for the outcome. Though the evidence is circumstantial, it appears some took issue with him calling out Solanart only. Getting an account reported to this effect requires a large scale of targeted reports from users.
Whether or not you believe Solanart were responsible for reporting these 3 very specific tweets, it is a poor result for the ethos of decentralization that somebody got banned for calling to attention the way they their community & users.
Is this the Web 3.0 we want?
Is this the Web 3.0 we want?
So what now?
When I wrote about this three months ago I said it was up to the community to act. It’s not good enough for the response to be “we’re still so early, what else can we do?”.
When I wrote about this three months ago I said it was up to the community to act. It’s not good enough for the response to be “we’re still so early, what else can we do?”.
The community - buyers, sellers & project teams should demand more acceptable standards if we are serious about improving Solana and the onboarding of the next wave of users.
This applies to Solanart as much as it does to all NFT exchanges on Solana
This applies to Solanart as much as it does to all NFT exchanges on Solana
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