Solana (SOL) NFT holders will soon have a new option for where to trade, with OpenSea teasing its integration of the Solana blockchain.

A 16-second video shared by the OpenSea Twitter account opened with the phrase “wen solana???” being typed into a search box and revealed that Solana will be supported by the marketplace in April.

The best kept secret in web3 pic.twitter.com/xuZn64cZ4U

— OpenSea (@opensea) March 29, 2022

Rumors of OpenSea supporting Solana NFTs have circulated for months. Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong — who made Forbes 30 under 30 for her high profile tech leak scoops — shared images on Twitter in January she said were sourced from OpenSea’s platform.

The images show the marketplace’s “blockchains filter” listing Solana as an option and the Phantom Solana crypto wallet appearsg in a list of supported wallets.

OpenSea’s Chains Filter showing Solana as an option pic.twitter.com/asQoYrfTm4

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) January 25, 2022

OpenSea coyly replied to Wong’s tweet with a “wide eyes” emoji at the time, but didn’t outright confirm or deny the authenticity of the claim.

Many popular Solana NFT projects have announced their intention to list with OpenSea in April, including SolPunks, Turtles, Remnants and the Degenerate Ape Academy.

The Solana integration will pitch OpenSea in direct competition with Magic Eden, Solanart, and Solsea, the current leading NFT marketplaces on the Solana blockchain.

Mistake or hack? Bored Ape NFT sells for $140

An OpenSea user by the handle “cchan” has sold a Bored Ape NFT and a Mutant Ape NFT for a combined value of $140.

A user made offers on the NFTs which were accepted by cchan and the sales were made to the within a minute of each other on Monday, Mar. 28, with BAYC #835 sold for 115 DAI, and MAYC #11670 sold for 25 DAI which is 99% under the current floor price.

DAI is a US dollar stablecoin with a diamond logo and it’s unknown if cchan mistook the offers to be in Ethereum (ETH) which would’ve been the equivalent of $470,000, or if the sales weres the result of a hack.

Activity by the user who purchased the NFTs shows a history of offers being made in DAI on Bored and Mutant Ape NFTs, which some have suggested could be in the hopes that this exact set of circumstances would occur.

Silk Road Founder to launch new NFTs at Bitcoin Miami

Ross Ulbricht, the imprisoned founder of the defunct darknet marketplace “Silk Road” is set to release another collection of NFTs at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami in April, with funds raised going toward helping children travel to visit their parents in prison.

In December 2021, Ulbricht auctioned a collection at the Art Basel Miami which netted him $6.2 million. The collection was purchased by FreeRossDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that aims to “share Ross’s work with the world and give everyone a unique opportunity to own a piece of it.”

“All of this has brought a new spark to my life,” Ross wrote in a post, reflecting on the sale of his last collection.

“I have direction and purpose and I feel like I can make a difference again. The more money we raise, the more good we can do, so I have been busy creating my next art collection.”

Dubbed the “Growth Collection”, it will be minted on the Bitcoin blockchain via Counterparty, and the piece will reportedly feature four physical oil paintings and one hand-drawn animation, accompanied by five Bitcoin NFTs to be auctioned on the Scarce.City network.

Related: NFTs are changing the way photographers create and market content

Ulbricht is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole for his part in creating the illicit online marketplace, which famously used Bitcoin as the means of transaction.

WWE and the Metaverse

The WWE has partnered with Fanatics, a sports marketing business which, amongst other offerings, enables brands to offer digital collectibles and NFTs to their audience.

The partnership will see Fanatics create “physical, digital, and non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards” for the WWE, with Fanatics to become the exclusive provider of licensed WWE physical and NFT trading cards, building a range featuring WWE’s “biggest moments and stars.”

Other Nifty News

Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the defunct Mt. Gox exchange announced that users who used the exchange between 2010 and 2014 around the time it was hacked, are eligible to register for a free NFT in the hopes it will “erase a bit of the loss incurred in Mt. Gox.”

The Decentraland metaverse hosted the Metaverse Fashion Week between March 24-27, 2022, the event attracted over 70 big name fashion labels and artists such as Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabbana, and Estée Lauder.

This week Gnosis (GNO) price notched a swift 50%+ rally after the project took another step forward in its transition to the Coincidence of Wants Procotol, or CoW, an interface that offers traders protection from miner extracted value (MEV).

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of GNO has gained 86% over the past seven days, rising from a low of $308 on March 21 to an intraday high at $574 on March 28.

Three reasons for the rapid price increase for GNO are the release of the CowSwap (COW) token, which was airdropped to Gnosis holders, traders’ appreciation of the MEV-protection offered by the protocol and the potential for GNO holders to receive additional airdrops in the future.

COW drops!

The most recent price surge appears primarily connected to the official release of COW, the native token of the CowSwap protocol which offers traders MEV-protection.

$COW token is finally expected to unlock around 3pm UTC today.

This will kick off a 12 week $COW liquidity mining program on @ethereum & @gnosis chain aginst $ETH and $GNO pairs.

On Ethereum $COW pool will be on @BalancerLabs & on gnosis chain it will be on @SwaprEth.

— DeFi Airdrops (@defi_airdrops) March 28, 2022

COW tokens were airdropped to GNO holders based on the number of tokens held or staked during a snapshot that was taken back in early January, with 5% of COW tokens going to GNO holders who could receive an extra 5% if they had locked their GNO tokens on the protocol for a period of one year.

At the time of writing, COW has been listed on Uniswap and is trading at a price of $1.35.

MEV protection features add value to GNO and COW

The main draw of the CowSwap protocol is the MEV-protections offered that can help traders get better terms on swaps and avoid being front run or the victim of a sandwich attack.

What Ethereum people call “Miner Extracted Value” is what Bitcoiners call a game theory fail.

MEV = willfully frontrunning transactions, paying higher fees to do flash loans, sandwich attacks, etc.

It’s a mix between extortion, pickpocketing & perverse free market incentives.

— Brad Mills (@bradmillscan) July 14, 2021

Miner extracted value is a sort of “invisible” tax that occurs on the Ethereum (ETH) network where miners can increase their profitability by including, excluding or re-ordering transactions within the block they produce.

This feature allows miners to conduct certain exploits including front-running, back-running and transaction sandwiching, which help to increase profits at the expense of traders.

According to data from flashbots, more than $605 million in value has been extracted by miners using this process since January 2020 — a figure which CowSwap looks to help mitigate moving forward through its introduction of MEV protection.

Related: Gnosis (GNO) continues uptrend after vCOW airdrop and rebrand to CoW Protocol

Future airdrops could give a long-term boost to GNO price

A third factor helping to boost the demand for GNO is the prospect of additional airdrops coming to GNO holders and stakers.

This includes an allocation of the soon-to-be-released SAFE token for Gnosis Safe, a platform in the Gnosis ecosystem that is designed to securely manage digital assets.

According to data from Dune Analytics, there is currently more than $77 billion worth of value held in Gnosis Safe contracts, a substantial amount that hints at the amount of trust various depositors have in the protocol.

Documentation released by Gnosis Safe indicates that 20% of SAFE tokens will be distributed to the GNO community via direct distribution to GNO holders and a substantial deposit into the GnosisDAO treasury.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for GNO on March 23, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for GNO began to pick up on March 23 and hit a high of 78 around nine hours before the price increased 78% over the next four days.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.