Over the last few years the world has slowly turned its bull market love for NFTs into bear market hate, yet the sprawling ecosystem that took roots on Solana has pushed on, and by now, over 300 million individual tokens in 180 thousand collections were created. Daily, thousands of new digital assets are birthed into this world and the pace at which the number grows is greater than it has ever been.

It is a diverse mix of art, utility, and finance—some of which are familiar to all of us. Each use case has not only spurred innovation but also led to the development of tools, protocols, and the nurturing of communities and culture.

Not long ago, NFTs were proclaimed to be “Actually — Finally — Totally Worthless” in the ramblings of old men not able to see the forest for the trees. With a market cap of non-fungible collections valued at close to $2 billion, rivaling the entirety of DeFi on the blockchain and second only to Ethereum, the birthplace of NFTs, NFTs on Solana might actually — finally — be worth more than the blocks they were minted on. An increasingly sophisticated user base actively participates by collecting, bidding, listing and trading these assets each day, generating volumes of millions of dollars that trickle down the ecosystem in the form of network fees, protocol fees, and royalties.

Metaplex stands as the cornerstone of this rapidly advancing NFT ecosystem, driving innovation and growth. Over the years, Metaplex has set the standards for the industry, fostered the development of diverse digital assets, and has been synonymous with NFTs. Its most recent efforts to exponentially reduce the cost of new mints to a degree only possible on Solana, have been so compelling that the entire Helium network has migrated over in 2023, together with over 600 thousand device tokens.

The blockchain retains forever an immutable and flawless record of all the transactions and events that got us here. Yet the ecosystem it shelters is fleeting, and its gods vulnerable.

Solana is a relatively young blockchain, celebrating its fourth anniversary in March 2024, and having survived through hardship and misfortune. The breakneck speed of the blockchain permeates the culture of the ecosystem, which has so far been through multiple transformations. One such transformation has been brought by what’s been called Defi 2.0 — a new generation of builders with a new generation of products, taking on the old lineup of platforms and closer to the values, goals and aspirations of the community.

But perhaps a more relevant example is in the NFT market itself. Behind the overall volumes presented earlier, there is the story of competing marketplaces, their share of it over time, the battles won and lost.

Over the nearly three years of its existence, this market has witnessed two major shifts in dominance: first, the rapid ascent of MagicEden over Solanart, and secondly, the gradual and steady rise of Tensor over MagicEden. The reasons behind these shifts are numerous, and perhaps not all are fully understood yet or completely played out. However, what is certain is that even in this highly digital realm, natural forces are at play, creating opportunities and driving change.

At the time these wars were being fought, and on the blockchain that started it all, a small group of heretics sought to expand the capabilities of the Bitcoin network (again), in what’s been called an exploit, abuse, and an insult to the purity of the blockchain and its Satoshi-given purpose by the laser-eyed maxis. Nevertheless, they persevered, introducing inscriptions and ordinals—a development that effectively brought the equivalent of NFTs to the old blockchain.

At a technical layer, blockchains still find it difficult to communicate to one another. But the speed at which information travels at the social layer has allowed the concept of inscriptions to quickly permeate virtually every blockchain, sparking a revival of the crypto punk ethos across the industry. While the impact on most networks may have been short-lived, it proved profoundly consequential on Solana.

Not only Metaplex did not have the tools to help with the creation of these new digital assets, it’s centralised control and closed-source nature was the ideological opposite of inscriptions — an inefficient use of space, costly, and fundamentally rejecting what had become blockchain tradition. But the current was too strong, the people could not and would not wait, so Libreplex was created as an open-license, community-led protocol that swiftly gained traction and support from all major NFT marketplaces.

In the first month, close to 1 million inscriptions were created, a threshold it would soon after surpass. Additionally, thousands of creators were using Libreplex, thereby affirming the community's demand for these tools and fuelling an unstoppable momentum of community-led progress.

By the end of 2023, the hype around inscriptions had subsided, only to resurface tentatively in mid-January 2024. During this time, Libreplex quickly matured and expanded its toolset. Drawing further inspiration from the Bitcoin camp, Libreplex introduced SPL20 tokens, a merger of inscriptions and fungible tokens, bridging the gap between NFT marketplaces and DeFi.

But while Libreplex made significant strides, it remained partly dependent on Metaplex's metadata program for the creation of inscriptions and the fungible tokens they were paired with. However, this dependency was soon challenged by the imminent release of Token Extensions, offering expanded functionalities for native tokens.

Token Extensions, formerly known as Token 2022 or T22, introduced the possibility of expanding the functionalities of native tokens by using extensions to add an array of functionalities, but crucially, metadata. During Jupiter’s Jupuary, leading up to the release of the JUP token, the creation of the WEN NFT with the use of Token Extensions was showcased. This simultaneously introduced the Wen New Standard 0.0, another example of a new community-led protocol, free to use, built on top of a native standard and offered as a public good.

Inscriptions ignited a movement, SPL20s bridged NFTs and DeFi, Token Extensions liberated metadata, and ultimately it all converged to create the SPL22 standard, where both the fungible and the non-fungible tokens were now built on T22 tokens using a community-developed, open license standard and tooling.

This opens the door to envisioning a future where tokens transcend traditional categories of fungibility. Instead, a unified standard could seamlessly traverse between both realms, blending the strengths of each. One should be allowed to dream.

While the possibilities are indeed endless, what's truly remarkable is that the responsibility of turning our dreams into reality no longer rests solely on the shoulders of a single entity. The Solana ecosystem has evolved to challenge the revered status of its oldest gods and usher in a new era, empowering anyone prepared to pursue their imagination with the powers once reserved for the almighty.