y00ts NFT Collection was paid $3 million by Polygon in order to terminate their contract in Solana

To migrate y00ts to the Ethereum sidechain Polygon, DeLabs, the company behind the popular Solana NFT collections DeGods and y00ts, has announced it has secured a $3 million grant.

Frank (a.k.a. Rohun Vora), the company’s creator, said in a Discord post that the funds will be used to expand the team and open a cryptocurrency incubator to help grow the NFT industry.

The Y00ts NFT collection is an offshoot of the popular DeGods PFP collection created by the DeLabs team on Solana.

Besides the planned transition to the new blockchain, the money seems to arrive with no strings attached. According to Frank, the funding is being provided as a “non-equity grant,” thus Polygon isn’t getting any ownership in DeLabs in return.

‘DeLabs as a firm has been understaffed for a long,’ the company’s founder said. Polygon fully supports Frank’s choice to avoid publicizing the y00ts grant amount on the company’s social platforms.

A Polygon representative told Decrypt through email, “We completely support Frank and the y00ts team’s devotion to openness and we look forward to all of the projects that will build on Polygon via their launchpad.”

DeLabs’ decision to abandon Solana in favour of Polygon and Ethereum follows closely on the heels of the demise of rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX by exactly one month. Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s ex-CEO, was a big investment in Solana and other ventures that built on the network, such as the decentralised exchange Serum, which has since shut down. The foundation of all DeFi activities on Solana was Serum, which Bankman-Fried and FTX created.

After 2021’s rapid rise to fame and widespread awareness, the NFT market saw a dramatic shift in 2022. The first few months of the year saw a dramatic uptick in momentum, followed by a precipitous decline.

However, DeLabs’s search for y00ts wasn’t limited to Polygon. DeLabs picked Polygon for y00ts, according to Frank, because “it’s the most interesting route for y00ts as a project,” despite “far greater offers.”

Also Read: Peter Schiff Said That Bitcoin Price Will Never Hit $100,000