The wake of 2020 brought with it the promise of DeFi and NFT solutions for conventional financial use cases, and several arts and entertainment industry challenges. It consequently led to the astronomical rise of diverse DeFi and NFT smart contract protocols and tokens overloading current smart contract blockchains at an unprecedented scale; this further revealed their lapses and the need for improvements. It also proved the need for a more inclusive smart contract chain solution that addressed the issues concerning smart contract chain networks' interoperability, security, speed, and fee size.

In response to these concerns, the Elrond team launched what is arguably an important milestone in the development of fungible and non-fungible tokens as well as dApps over smart contract chains.

Smart Contract User Limitations

Smart contract-type networks typically have a few scale limitations, language limitations for developers, and security concerns, which borders around the possibility of a Sybil attack, a Nothing at Stake attack, and several other security challenges. In the next section, we explored three obvious and important steps taken by Elrond to deliver a better smart contract experience overall.

Elrond’s Inclusivity and Partnerships

Beyond being user-friendly, Elrond has great cross-chain compatibility, across all EVM compatible chains. Also, Elrond is constantly building industrial partnerships with trusted brands to improve its network effect and adoption.

Everstake is the biggest staking provider for decentralized multi-chain stakers. So far, Everstake provides decentralized staking services for over 625,000 users across 50 blockchains, including Elrond. Everstake has been involved in Elrond since its inception and remains an active community player with diverse content, ecosystem contributions, and active engagement in the network’s development.

Elrond's User-Friendliness for Developers

Beyond the use of Solidity, the Elrond programming framework is compatible with several other programming and script languages, like RUST, C/C++, C#, and Typescript. Also, the Elrond Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS) network offers significant transaction processing time and cross-chain functionalities for on-chain interactions with predecessor chains like Ethereum, Solana, and all EVM-compatible chains.

Network Transaction Throughput and Security

The Elrond network has a transaction processing speed of over 250,000 transactions per second, while still being fully decentralized, an important feature that prepares the network for massive usage. Importantly, this speed is presented on a secure network, guaranteed by Elrond's Secure Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm. Also, this feature was cited by Everstake as an important security component.

Beyond DeFi Protocols: Building NFTs on Elrond

As non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continue to gain massive traction, several creators are looking for places to have their work showcased, and NFT marketplace developers are looking for the most conducive on-chain environment to allow creators to create. The Elrond ecosystem offers its strategic advantages and features explored earlier for NFT developers and creators to thrive on the platform. Also, Elrond remains the destination of choice for both primary and secondary NFT market players. As we saw previously, this is because of Elrond's ease of use, seen in its NFT content minting, its security, and network speed.

The opportunities Elrond affords creators are outstanding when compared to similar NFT compatible chains. Very briefly, we will explore Elrond in comparison to other NFT chains, in light of Node strength, partnership, consensus algorithm, network fees, staking APR potentials, user-friendliness, and overall chain security

Elrond and Other NFT Chains

This table explores Elrond in comparison to other chains.

Exploring Popular NFTs on Elrond

There are numerous  NFT projects on the Elrond network, with many of them recording high sales and volumes. Some of the popular NFTs on Elrond are listed below.

1.   Elrond Apes

Elrond Apes comprises 10,000 3D apes that are unique and randomly generated. The collection is working to assemble an NFT community on Elrond made up of collectors willing to participate in an amazing adventure. Creators enjoy a 10% royalty fee for every purchase made.

2.  Drifters

Drifters offer creators a chance to monetize their arts in a virtual world called Aevitas where they can build, develop, and trade NFTs.

3.  Gnogons

Gnogons is also a 10,000 randomly generated NFT collection. Gnogons are dragons that are created for a virtual world called the Gnogenverse.

4.  MaiarPunks

MaiarPunks is another 10,000 NFT collection built on the Elrond network. Creators can customize their characters using the native token $TOLKEN. In this folklore, the Earth has been corrupted by Chaldur, a dark god, and the Miaiar arise to try to save the Earth and its dwellers.  

5.  Emidas Genesis

Emidas is the first supreme hero in the Gnogen comics universe. It has 7 NFTs in its Genesis collection with each minted in a bulk of 200 NFTs. Emidas auctioned 12 of these NFTs as first editions while the rest were offered as general releases.

Rising to Prominence on Elrond: The success story of Gnogons

Lots of NFT marketplaces exist on the Elrond network, each offering a slightly different set of features and structures unique to their product. Some, however, have become more popular among flippers and have also drawn more media attention than the rest. As of the time of writing, the Gnogon marketplace has been the fan-favorite with its 9,838 followers on Twitter.

Beyond the social media patronage, Gnogon has boosted the volume that went through Elrond’s platform with its 5991.98 EGLD in trades. This total represents about 28.53% of the aggregated trade volume of the top 10 projects on Elrond. To understand this success story, even more, Gnogon is currently leading its closest runner-up on our ranking board with over 20% clear-cut score both in trade volume and in driving attention from the social media.

How Big Is The Secondary Market For NFTs on Elrond?

NFTs are usually traded in both primary and secondary markets. The primary market deals basically with collectors trading with creators, while in the secondary market, collectors trade amongst themselves, trying to make more profits reselling already bought NFTs. In many secondary markets, the original creator earns a certain percentage in the form of royalties each time their digital asset is sold on the secondary market.

On the Elrond Network, over 223,000 NFTs already minted are available for resale and also enjoy huge followership on Twitter. Specifically, ElrondAPEs has a following of over 24,000 and Elrond Duck over 11,000. In February of 2022, Popular Brazilian footballer Dani Alves also joined an Elrond NFT, called the Club Gorgon NFT project. His love for Medusa arts and the project's prospects are what motivated him to become a part of the project, according to his official tweet.  

Conclusion

Since its launch, the Elrond team has been fast with improving its ecosystem on all fronts, building multiple partnerships with high-profile and leading brands in the blockchain space. Everstake is heavily invested in the further evolution of the Elrond ecosystem through diverse activities ranging from content creation to network support. Although Elrond is a relatively young chain, its market growth, adoption, and many improvements are proof of even greater developments in the future.

Everstake

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