Solana NFT Developers Are Killing Digital Llamas

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NFT project Sollamas has had a rough start, encountering several major issues. The developer’s decision to destroy minted llamas has angered the Sollamas community. 

Sollamas Mint Goes South

The Sollamas NFTs launched yesterday, promising a collection of 10,000 uniquely generated, cute, and collectible llamas with proof of ownership stored on the Solana blockchain.

However, the NFT mint did not go smoothly, encountering several major issues that have compromised the project’s integrity. As the mint started, reports came in from users saying that they were receiving more llamas than they had paid for. In contrast, others reported not receiving a llama, despite shelling out 4 SOL ($280) to mint one. Additionally, it appears that some people overpaid for their llamas and that the 10,000 cap was breached, with more llamas minted than the project originally promised.

To rectify the issues with the drop, the Sollamas development team appears to be “killing” llamas from the first generation by changing the NFTs picture to that of a gravestone.

Make this right @SollamasNFT … little Zavier was my only purchase! A legit epic llama … ! The ghost of Zavier will haunt you if I don’t get at least an epic Gen 2 drop 🦙 ☠️ pic.twitter.com/bikhXCwPd2

— MiloSyndX (@milohendrix_) August 18, 2021

The Sollamas team posted to Twitter promising that everyone who minted a first-generation llama would receive another from the second generation. However, many are unhappy with the resolution, as their rare first-generation llamas are now being replaced with common second-generation ones. 

The decision to “kill” the llamas already minted and paid for has raised serious concerns about whether the project is decentralized. A founding principle in earlier NFT projects such as CryptoPunks is that the NFTs are immutable and cannot be changed once deployed on the blockchain. 

Sollamas is not the first NFT project deployed on Solana to face issues. Last weekend, another NFT avatar project, Degenerate Ape Academy, launched to a similar level of hype. When minting started, many could not access the website due to the sheer number of people trying to secure an ape. Some of those who could mint had their transactions processed after all the NFTs were sold, paying SOL and not receiving anything. 

Over the last week, Solana has been attracting more NFT projects due to the low cost of minting NFTs on the network. However, launching NFTs on Solana is not as well established as on Ethereum. As the hype for NFTs on Solana builds, developers will need to take care not to repeat the same mistakes as Sollamas and Degenerate Ape Academy.

Update: Since publishing this story, the Sollamas team have introduced a buyback program for people who are unsatisfied with their gen 2 llama replacements. The program is running for 24 hours from Aug. 20 and will allow anyone who minted a Sollamas NFT to exchange it for the SOL they originally paid. 

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned BTC and ETH.

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