Following the launch of the Ordinals protocol, which allows the minting and issuance of NFTs directly on the Bitcoin Blockchain, a new era has begun for Solana (SOL) amidst the ensuing hype. Metaplex, a leading altcoin, has opened the doors to a new era for Solana by announcing Metaplex Inscriptions and Engravings, a new standard for Solana NFTs following the hype caused by Bitcoin NFTs.
A New Era Begins for Solana NFTs
Metaplex, a protocol that has facilitated the minting of 110 million NFTs and hosts 15 million NFT collections on the Solana Blockchain, announced Metaplex Inscriptions and Engravings as a new standard for Solana NFTs. With this new standard, the metadata and media content of Solana NFTs can be stored directly on the network.
Currently, the metadata and media content of most NFTs on Solana are stored on external services such as Arweave, IPFS, and S3. This means that an NFT’s image or metadata is not stored on Solana and is therefore dependent on an external system.
Metaplex Inscriptions allow for the complete storage of an asset’s metadata and media content on Solana, eliminating the assumptions of trust in external systems and unlocking more configurability for on-chain attributes and smart contracts.
New Standard Sent to Developer Network
Metaplex also announced Engravings, which enable Solana’s first truly immutable NFTs and inscriptions. Engravings provide an extra layer of security that prevents any changes to NFTs with Engravings, regardless of whether the source program is immutable or not.
The announcement from Metaplex stated that the new standard has been sent to the developer network (devnet). After the testing phase, the new standard is expected to be made available for general use, allowing both the minting of new NFTs and the transformation of existing NFTs to utilize this standard.
