Solana Monkey Business NFT: The Top Solana NFT Project, Explained
by corporate trash
4/4/2022
Solana Monkey Business is one of the top-selling and most well-known NFT projects on the Solana blockchain. Although Gen2 SMBs were only launched in August 2021, the Solana Monkey Business community has grown substantially, even creating its own community-established DAO — MonkeDAO.
The main 5,000 NFT profile picture collection is made up of smiley, distinctive pixelated 24×24 monkeys. The SMBs have over 99 traits and six generative layers, with some of the rarest commanding substantial price premiums on the secondary market.
Solana Monkey Business Overview
OG and Commemorative NFTs: May 2021
The earliest members to the project’s Discord server were rewarded with an OG monkey — and only 840 of them exist. In addition, nine “Monking” NFTs were given to the first owners of Gen1 monkeys, and 2,720 Jungle Jams NFTs were also distributed as part of a collaboration with Audius.
While these are still notable, the value of most of these collectors’ editions are a fraction of Gen1 and Gen2 monkeys.
Solana Monkey Business Gen1: June 2021
Gen1 is a collection of 205 spaced-themed monkey NFTs. There are four types, and holders of all four (max 25 sets available) earn royalties on every secondary sale in the Gen2 collection.
These NFT types are Monkancian, AstroMonkey, Monkos, and Monkaliens. The latest sales for these respectively were 21.5 SOL, 600 SOL, 910 SOL, and 2508 SOL.
SMB Gen2: August 2021
Gen2 is known as the 5,000 main Solana Monkey Business collection that most refer to today. These minted on August 3, 2021 for 2 SOL, around $69 at the time. Currently, the floor is 234 SOL, or about $30,000 as of writing.
The rarest traits are 0 attributes, Solana Type, Diamond Clothes, Pipe Mouth, Solana Viper Eyes, and Crown Hat.
Holders are granted commercial rights to their SMBs; the terms state: “creators grant you an unlimited, worldwide license to use, copy, and display the purchased Art of the 5,000 monkeys for the purpose of creating any derivative works based upon original SMBs. “
Over 50 percent are unique owners, and the community is extremely diamond-handed — only 420 are currently listed out of 5,000, and many have held since day one of the project.
The top-selling Solana Monkey Business Gen2 NFT “Skelly King” was sold in October 2021 for $2 million USD, and remains the highest NFT sale on Solana. This is the only Crown Hat in existence.
Solana Monkey Business Marketplace
While you can purchase the collection on Solana NFT marketplaces like DigitalEyes and Magic Eden, one of the first things that the project did was launch their own marketplace. We have seen this with projects like CryptoPunks, as they attempt to keep the project as decentralized as possible and create their own interface for buying.
Solana Monkey Business has generated $160 million in secondary sales from August 2021 through March 22, 2022.
MonkeDAO Royalty Controversy
MonkeDAO is a community-founded DAO that is separate from Solana Monkey Business, but is exclusive to owners. They were the first DAO to launch a SOL staking pool, and add value back to the community through DAO innovation. There are plans for a $MONKE token, Monkeverse 3D Avatars, and more.
There has been some controversy lately surrounding MonkeDAO and the original project. 0.5 percent of all Solana Monkey Business royalties went towards funding the community wallet, but MonkeDAO said they need more to achieve their plans.
Many holders argued that more royalties should go to MonkeDAO because they believe it has driven most of the project value lately.
Due to this conflict, MonkeDAO considered running a hard fork on their NFTs, essentially wrapping them and breaking up the collection as a whole. Many believed his would have been detrimental to the value of the entire project.
Ultimately, the Solana Monkey Business community voted unanimously to shift more royalties to MonkeDAO in March 2022, increasing their share to 2 percent. This compromise showed the willingness of the Solana Monkey Business project to do what it takes to sustain the community long-term.
TL;DR — Solana Monkey Business NFT
These monkeys may have come after projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club, but they are the premier Solana NFT project. Their efforts to enhance and reward the community have led to them remaining at a high floor value, even through times of controversy within the MonkeDAO.
To date, the project has done over 1 million $SOL (currently $130 million) in secondary sales on its main collection.
Roadmap plans for Solana Monkey Business include Gen1 and OG market integrations, official holders governance, and various metaverse integrations. They have consistently delivered on their simple yet effective roadmap, and there is much more to come, with the team currently hiring.