As of October 2026, there are two main places to trade Solana NFTs. Tensor is a trading-focused marketplace that the Tensor Foundation has run since November 2025. Magic Eden made Solana its only chain on 9 March 2026. OpenSea started supporting Solana again, but only for a selected group of collections. Exchange Art, the main curated art venue on Solana, closed on 1 August 2026. Many marketplaces from 2021–22 lists are no longer worth considering, so check that a venue is still active before you send it SOL or list an NFT.
What changed in 2026
Magic Eden goes Solana-only (announced 27 February 2026)
Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu announced on 27 February 2026 that the company would close its Bitcoin and EVM NFT markets. Decrypt reported this on the same day. Cointelegraph reported on 2 March 2026 that the EVM marketplace and the Bitcoin Runes and Ordinals marketplace would close on 9 March. The Bitcoin API would follow on 27 March and the wallet on 1 April. Lu said "80% of our cost are tied to products generating only 20% of our revenue." He described the move as "refocusing on our Solana roots." According to Cointelegraph, the company is also ending its NFT buyback programme, and its main focus is now Dicey, its casino product.
Decrypt cited Dune data on Magic Eden's volume in the month before the announcement. Digital collectibles traded $576 million, mostly Solana NFTs. Bitcoin-based assets accounted for about $121,000.
Tensor moves to its foundation (November 2025)
Solana Compass says Tensor Labs transferred the Tensor NFT marketplace to the independent Tensor Foundation in November 2025. The foundation is governed by TNSR holders. With the transfer, the share of marketplace fees going to the TNSR treasury rose from 50% to 100%.
Exchange Art closes (1 August 2026)
The exchange.art homepage now reads: "We're closed — thank you to every artist and collector who built this community with us." Solana Compass reports that the platform closed on 1 August 2026, citing an "extended downturn in onchain art activity" and no "fiscally viable path forward." Before closing, it returned the artworks and funds held in its escrow and sales contracts to their owners. The NFTs remain on Solana and can be traded on other marketplaces.
OpenSea returns to Solana (2026)
OpenSea's help centre says it supported Solana NFTs in 2022 and wound that support down in 2023. The current Solana support is "a new build rather than the old one switched back on." It "starts with a selected group of collections and grows from there." You can list and buy NFTs and make item or collection offers. You cannot create or mint Solana NFTs on OpenSea.
The marketplaces that matter now
Tensor
- Who it suits: active traders. Tensor's documentation describes a real-time trading interface, market-making orders, collection-wide bids and coverage of more than 30,000 Solana collections.
- Fees: 2% taker fee and 0% maker fee, according to Tensor's fees page. The taker is whoever accepts a listing or bid. A maker is whoever posts one.
- Royalties: On collections with enforced royalties, Tensor requires full royalties, and the taker always pays them. On other collections, paying royalties "is at the taker's discretion."
- AMM pools: Liquidity providers put NFTs and SOL into pools for a specific collection. Prices move with pool depth.
- Creators: Tensor runs a launchpad that supports pNFTs and compressed NFTs.
- Background: Solana Compass says Tensor launched in July 2022 and released the TNSR governance token in March 2024.
Magic Eden
- Who it suits: general buyers and holders of established Solana collections.
- Fees: the fee shown at checkout is the one that applies to your trade.
- Watch for: The company's main focus has moved to Dicey, and Cointelegraph reports a focus on NFT packs. Watch how much Magic Eden keeps investing in its core Solana marketplace.
OpenSea (Solana, selected collections)
- Who it suits: collectors who already use OpenSea for other chains and want one interface.
- Supported standards: Metaplex Core, compressed NFTs, programmable NFTs and Token-2022. It also supports collections priced in USDC on Solana.
- Limits: Only collections OpenSea covers can be traded there. Creating or minting Solana NFTs is not possible.
Where can your Solana NFT trade, and what will it cost?
Answer two questions about your venue and your NFT's token standard to see what to check before you buy, sell or list.
Is the marketplace you plan to use still operating?
- Yes, it is live → next question
- I am not sure → Confirm the venue first
- It has closed → Your NFTs stay on-chain
Which token standard does your NFT use?
- Programmable NFT (pNFT) or Metaplex Core → Royalties can be enforced
- Token Metadata (the original, legacy standard) → Royalties are optional
- Compressed NFT (Bubblegum) → Check format support
Several Solana marketplaces from earlier rankings are closed or inactive. Check that a venue is still active before you send it SOL or list an NFT.
If a venue closes, your NFTs stay in your wallet and can be traded elsewhere. The curated art venue that closed on 1 August 2026 returned the items and funds held in escrow to their owners before it shut.
With pNFTs and Core, creators can enforce royalties at the program level, and pNFT rule sets can block transfers through programs that do not honour royalties. On collections with enforced royalties, the trading-focused marketplace charges the taker the full royalty on top of its 2% taker fee. Network fees come on top of that.
A standard Token Metadata NFT cannot enforce royalties; the user or program making the transfer decides whether to pay. On collections without enforced royalties, paying is at the taker's discretion, but the 2% taker fee and network fees still apply. Metaplex now calls this standard legacy for new projects.
Compressed NFTs are stored as leaves in a Merkle tree and need an RPC that supports the Metaplex DAS API to be read. Make sure both your marketplace and your wallet support the compressed format before you buy.
This covers venue status, token standard and the fee and royalty rules in the article only: it does not give one marketplace's current fee, which collections a venue lists, or whether any NFT is worth buying.
The token standards decide where an NFT can trade
Not every marketplace supports every Solana NFT format. Before you buy, look up the standard your NFT uses:
| Standard | What it is | Key point |
|---|---|---|
| Token Metadata | The original Metaplex standard | Metaplex now calls it legacy for new projects. Each NFT needs a mint, a metadata and a token account. |
| Programmable NFTs (pNFTs) | Token Metadata assets with creator-defined rules | Rule sets can block transfers through programs that do not honour royalties. |
| Metaplex Core | Metaplex's current standard | One account per asset. Minting costs about 0.003 SOL, against about 0.022 SOL for Token Metadata. A Royalties plugin enforces royalties by default. |
| Compressed NFTs (Bubblegum) | NFTs stored as leaves in a Merkle tree | Very low cost per NFT at scale. They need an RPC that supports the Metaplex DAS API to be read. |
Royalties work differently across these formats. Metaplex's documentation says a standard NFT cannot enforce royalties: "it is up to the user or program that performs the transfer to decide whether they want to honor it." With pNFTs and Core, creators can enforce royalties at the program level. That is why Tensor charges royalties in full on some collections and leaves them optional on others.
Practical checklist
- Confirm the venue is live. Several Solana marketplaces from earlier rankings are closed or inactive. Exchange Art closed in August 2026.
- Check the standard. Make sure your marketplace and wallet support the NFT's format (Core, pNFT, compressed or legacy).
- Compare total cost. On Tensor, add the 2% taker fee and any royalty to the price. Network fees come on top.
- Bids and pools. If you sell into a collection-wide bid or an AMM pool, you are the taker and pay the fee and any enforced royalty.
- If a venue closes. Your NFTs stay on-chain in your wallet and can be traded elsewhere. Exchange Art returned escrowed items to their owners before it shut.
