Building on Sui vs. Ethereum vs. Solana: A Creator's Guide

Many NFT creators default to Ethereum or Solana because that’s what's familiar. But defaulting to familiarity isn't the same as making the right decision for your project. And in 2026, the landscape has shifted enough that the answer isn't as obvious as it used to be.

The chain you build on affects your costs, your potential collector base, the tools available to you, the community you're joining, and how easily new collectors can actually participate. It's worth thinking through carefully.

Here's a comparison of Ethereum, Solana, and Sui, and why we think Sui represents a new opportunity for emerging creators.

Ethereum: The Established Standard

Ethereum is where NFTs were born, and the legacy shows. The collector base is the largest, the secondary market is the most liquid, and the cultural prestige of building here is real.

The case for Ethereum:

• Largest collector base. The most wallets, the most established collector culture, the deepest liquidity. Maximum addressable market.
• Prestige. High-value 1/1 art and blue-chip projects live on Ethereum. For certain types of work, that context matters.
• Mature tooling. The ecosystem is extensive and well-tested.

The reality for most emerging creators:

• Gas fees remain a friction point. During high-demand periods, minting costs can eat into collectors' willingness to participate, especially on lower-priced collections.
• It's extremely crowded. Thousands of projects compete for the same collector's attention. Breaking through without an existing audience is genuinely hard.
• Royalties have been significantly eroded. The marketplace wars of the last few years have weakened creator royalty enforcement in ways that have materially reduced ongoing income for creators.
• Onboarding new collectors is friction-heavy. Getting someone new to crypto into an Ethereum wallet is a multi-step process that loses people.

Ethereum makes sense if you're an established creator with an existing collector base or you're making high-value 1/1 work for a collector audience that's already there. For most emerging creators building from scratch, you're competing for limited attention in the most crowded NFT market in the space.

Solana: Fast and Active, But Increasingly Crowded

Solana was the first serious challenger to Ethereum's NFT dominance and built a real ecosystem in the process. The transaction speeds are fast, fees are low, and platforms have developed a substantial collector base.

The case for Solana:

• Fast and cheap. Minting is smooth for collectors and the on-chain experience is generally solid.
• Established NFT community. Particularly strong for PFP projects and generative art, with an engaged secondary market.
• Mature launchpad infrastructure. The tooling for launching has improved significantly.

The reality:

• It's gotten crowded. Solana has become nearly as saturated as Ethereum for new project launches. The window when emerging creators could stand out easily has narrowed.
• Royalty challenges mirror Ethereum. The same marketplace dynamics that eroded royalties on Ethereum played out similarly on Solana. Enforcement is inconsistent.
• Network reliability has improved, but the history lingers. Past outages created lasting trust questions for some collectors and builders.

If you're already embedded in the Solana community and your collectors live there, staying there makes sense. But for a creator without an existing Solana audience, you're entering a competitive ecosystem where visibility is getting harder to earn.

Sui: A New Opportunity

Sui is a newer Layer 1 built on a fundamentally different technical architecture than Ethereum or Solana. Fast finality, extremely low gas, and an NFT community that's still being built, which means early creators don't just participate in it, they help define it.

This is where we think the strongest case for emerging creators currently sits.

Why Sui makes sense:

• Gas fees that don't get in the way. Transactions on Sui cost fractions of a cent. For collectors, especially those new to crypto, this removes one of the biggest friction points in actually participating. No more watching a mint fail because someone didn't have enough gas.
• Less competition, more visibility. Sui's NFT ecosystem is growing, not saturated. There are fewer projects competing for the same collector attention, which means a well-crafted launch here has a real chance of getting noticed in a way that's increasingly difficult on Ethereum or Solana.
• You help shape the culture. The creators building on Sui right now are the ones who will be seen as the pioneers. The community is tight-knit and founder-forward — people actually know each other. That changes how launches feel and how communities grow.
• Creator-forward on royalties. There are active efforts in the Sui ecosystem around royalty enforcement that are more creator-friendly than what currently exists on Ethereum or Solana. As a creator, your ongoing revenue from secondary sales is taken seriously here.
• A growing collector base that's hungry for quality. Sui collectors are actively looking for the next standout project. The attention economics favor creators right now in a way they don't on more saturated chains.
• TradePort is here. We've built on Sui since day one. When you launch with TradePort, you're not just getting a marketplace, you're getting a full suite of creator tools (Discord integrations, community mechanics, analytics), and a team that's genuinely invested in your project's success.

The honest tradeoffs:

• The collector base is smaller than Ethereum or Solana. This is real. Plan your supply and pricing accordingly; a tighter, well-priced collection will outperform an oversized one every time.
• The ecosystem is still maturing. Tooling and secondary market depth are growing, but they're not yet at Ethereum's scale. You're building in an ecosystem that's still being built.
• Cross-chain migration takes work. If your existing audience lives on Ethereum or Solana, you'll need to bring them along or build a new audience from scratch. Neither is impossible, but it's worth being honest about the lift.

For creators who are starting fresh, building their community as they go, and want to be a meaningful voice in a growing space, not another project lost in the noise, Sui offers a clear path forward for teams who are eager to get started.

A home for your next project?

At TradePort, we've been investing in Sui since day one because we believe this is where the next generation of meaningful NFT projects will be built. If you're thinking about launching and want to talk through whether Sui is the right fit for your specific project, reach out on X.