NFT Marketplace Guide
Build a complete NFT marketplace on Solana with listing, bidding, and royalties.
Building an NFT marketplace on Solana requires integrating with several Metaplex programs and implementing a robust backend for indexing marketplace activity.
Listing and Sales
The core marketplace functionality — listing NFTs for sale and executing purchases — can be implemented using the Metaplex Auction House program or the newer Auctioneer extension. These programs handle escrow, royalty distribution, and atomic swap execution.
Indexing Marketplace Activity
A production marketplace needs to index all listings, sales, bids, and cancellations. Subscribe to gRPC transactions for your marketplace program and parse the instruction data to extract trade details. Store this data in a queryable database for displaying active listings and sale history.
Royalty Enforcement
Solana's original royalty system was opt-in, leading to widespread royalty bypassing. Metaplex's Programmable NFTs (pNFTs) enforce royalties at the protocol level using transfer hooks. New marketplaces should support pNFTs and enforce creator royalties.
Digital Asset Standard (DAS) API
Use the DAS API (available through Helius and other providers) to query NFT ownership and metadata. DAS supports both regular and compressed NFTs through a unified interface.