Y00ts, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection that was once among the top projects on Solana, has announced that it will be migrating away from Polygon and would return the $3 million grant it received from the Ethereum layer 2 earlier this year.
Instead, y00ts said it planned to migrate to Ethereum in order to “unite the DeGods and y00ts communities.” DeGods, another project created by Los Angeles-based startup DeLabs, migrated to Ethereum in April.
Y00ts said that the date of the migration would be announced “shortly.” DeGods also announced the upcoming release of a Season III collection in tandem with the migration news.
The two projects initially announced their departure from Solana in December, with DeGods project leader, Rohun Vora, known as Frank, explaining in a Twitter Spaces that the collection had “capped out on Solana.” Prior to the announcement, sales of DeGods and y00ts made up nearly 70% of all Solana NFT sale volume, according to NFT marketplace Magic Eden.
Y00ts completed its migration to Polygon earlier this year and planned to use the grant money to fund its team expansion and continue to grow its project. Polygon said it plans to re-deploy $1 million of the refunded grant to empower its native network of builders and creators.
Vora said in a tweet that “it’s all love” between the parties involved.
“We tried our best to make it work but we just need to bring our 2 communities together,” he tweeted.
In a statement, Vora said that Polygon Labs had been a “truly incredible partner for y00ts.”
“But ultimately, we believe it makes the most sense for y00ts to be on the same chain as DeGods,” said Vora. “We feel really lucky to have collaborated with so many great, hard-working people at Polygon Labs, and we can’t thank them enough. It’s an exciting chapter for all of us, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds.”
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal appeared supportive of the decision, saying that Vora and his team were helpful in expanding Polygon’s growing NFT ecosystem.
“Frank and team played a huge role in helping us expand the NFT [profile picture] ecosystem on Polygon,” said Nailwal. “We will continue to nurture this community that’s tripled in size this year by redeploying the y00ts funds and more to support our native creators and projects we believe have the vision and conviction to help evolve NFTs, both as an artform and as a key to boundless utility.”
Response to the announcement was mixed on X, formerly Twitter, though most community members sounded off in support of the move.
Following the announcement, sales of y00ts NFTs were up while DeGods NFTs were down, according to data from OpenSea.
