NBA Hall of Famer and Champion Shaquille O’Neal is switching his allegiance from one leading cryptocurrency to another. Here are the latest details.
What Happened: Many in the sports and cryptocurrency sectors couldn’t help but notice that the name of Shaquille O’Neal had changed on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR).
SHAQ.SOL got a nice ring to it
— SHAQ.SOL (@SHAQ) February 27, 2022
O’Neal, commonly referred to as Shaq, is now listed as Shaq.Sol on Twitter, referencing Solana (CRYPTO: SOL). Shaq, who has 15.6 million followers on Twitter, previously was listed as Shaq.ETH on Twitter, referencing the Ethereum Domain Name Service of the same name that he owned.
Shaq announced that his first Solana NFT was one from the Jungle Cats collection.
Magic Eden, a leading NFT marketplace for Solana, shared on Twitter that Shaq changed his Twitter name to .SOL during a Twitter Spaces conversation with them. The Twitter Spaces was titled “What’s SHAQ.ETH doing on #Solana?”
O’Neal also recently retweeted the mint date and details for Astrals, an upcoming Solana project launching on March 9, 2022.
Related Link: Exclusive: 5 Top Solana Projects To Watch According To Solana Legend
Why It’s Important: O’Neal has been a frequent voice in the non-fungible token community. The NBA legend purchased several Creature World NFTs and highlighted them on Twitter. O’Neal also owns a Mutant Ape Yacht Club, one of the most popular NFT collections of all-time.
Shaq previously featured one of his Creature World NFTs as his profile picture on Twitter. After the profile picture change and news of Shaq buying the NFT was publicized, sales volume in Creatures shot up 1,164% in a 24-hour period.
O’Neal launched his own NFT collection called Shaq Gives Back. The 10,000 piece collection sold out at 0.05 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) each, with over $1 million in proceeds going to Shaq’s charity.
Solana NFTs have grown in popularity, with sales volume on Magic Eden recently passing the $1 billion milestone. The average daily transaction per user on Magic Eden is significantly higher than ETH rival OpenSea, according to a report.
Many users in the NFT community have changed their Twitter profile names to feature the .ETH address associated with Ethereum Name Services. Few have used a .SOL reference on Twitter and Shaq is among the biggest names to publicly endorse a Solana project.
Solana could continue to gain ground on Ethereum based NFTs, and the influence of celebrities and athletes could bring new people into the Solana blockchain ecosystem.
SOL Price Action: Solana is trading up 16.24% to $98.69 on Monday. The coin has traded between $11.90 and $260.06 over the last 52-weeks.
Photo: Courtesy of Cubahora on Flickr
