Okay Bears, a Solana 

SOL

$16

-powered nonfungible token (NFT), managed to top OpenSea’s 24-hour sales tracker for the first time earlier on Thursday, beating out all other Ethereum 

ETH

$1,330

 projects on offer. 

It’s the first time a Solana NFT project has reached the top spot in thpopular NFT marketplace OpenSea’s 24-hour sales tracker.

The Solana-based NFT, which features a collection of 10,000 diverse images of bears, told its Twitter followers it had sold out its collection only a day after its launch, bringing in 231,000 SOL, equivalent to $23.1 million in total sales to date at the time of writing, according to NFT tracker Cryptoslam. 

The Solana network has been gaining traction as a contender in the Ethereum-dominated NFT market. As of Thursday, it is the second most active blockchain by NFT sales volume over the last 24 hours.

Fine wine NFTs auctioned in South African wine industry first

In a first for South Africa’s fine wine industry, five of the country’s finest and historic wine collections have been auctioned off as NFTs, raising nearly 3 million RAND ($186,800).

The auction was undertaken through Strauss & Co, a fine art auctioneer and consultant, with several wine estates including Klein Constantia, Meerlust, Mullineux, Kanonkop and Vilafonté putting their collections under the gavel. Two of the lots were paid with Bitcoin 

BTC

$17,403

 immediately after the sale.

“It shows that collectors value the ability to own and trade fine wines through these new ownership certificates,” said Web3 company Fanfire’s CEO Gert-Jan Van Rooyen, the tech partner behind the auction.

“We envision a future where collectors can hold an entire portfolio of wines from across the world in their crypto wallets.”

Almost R2.4m already bid on Africa's 1st 5 wine NFTs! So excited about this project. @FanfireWeb3 created a new type of "vault" NFT to hold individual bottles. One vault holds 288 bottles that can be traded as collection, or redeemed & traded individuallyhttps://t.co/FJcN37jpvp

— G-J van Rooyen (@gvrooyen) April 25, 2022

Five NFT collections are outpacing the rest 

Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Clone X, Doodles and Moonbirds NFTs continue to hover as the top performers in terms of gains in the market, according to Twitter user NFTstatistics.eth, who operates under the Twitter handle @punk9059.

The Twitter user describes themselves as a keeper of NFT data, charts and thoughts, with 17,000 followers.

The five NFTs are currently ranked within the top 12 NFT collections ranked in terms of sales, according to CryptoSlam.

Other Nifty News

ApeCoin (APE) underwent a modest selloff earlier this week after it was reported Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a popular nonfungible token (NFT) brand, reported losing $2.4 million worth of digital collectibles in a robbery.

A Chinese court has issued a one-of-a-kind judgment against an NFT marketplace for allowing a user to mint NFTs of stolen artwork. A user of NFTCN allegedly stole the copyrighted artwork of Ma Qianli, a Chinese painter and artist.