Mad News: Solana Supports Solidity
Solana welcomes Ethereum developers, Mad Merch ships, Raydium adopts Token-2022 support, Armani goes on massive interview circuit and Solana report shows improvements on the network.
In this week’s Mad News
Solana welcomes Ethereum developers
New xNFTs added to Library
Raydium’s Token-2022 support
Podcasts, interviews and panels
Solana Network Performance report
Table Of Contents
Mad Lads & Backpack
Solana Ecosystem
Solana Labs releases Solidity compiler
You can now build on Solana using Solidity, the primary programming language designed for developing Ethereum smart contracts.
Solang is a Solidity compiler that allows EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) developers to take advantage of the Solana’s high speed and low fees.
Start here for the beginner’s guide to Solang.
Solana welcoming the Ethereum dev community like:
Mad Merch Has Shipped
Mad Merch began arriving on doorsteps this week.
Each delivery comes with a challenge: post a selfie with your merch for a chance to win a Mad Lad NFT!
You can still purchase Mad Merch NFTs on marketplaces like Tensor and Magic Eden.
Raydium implements Token-2022
Raydium, a prominent token trading and AMM platform, launched support of Solana’s Token-2022 extension.
Raydium now supports the permissionless creation of concentrated liquidity pools (CLMM) and farms for Token-2022 assets. CLMM pools offer unique advantages, such as increased liquidity depth around the current price, leading to better prices for traders.
The Token-2022 Program, launched in August 2022, adds more functionality to the native SPL (Solana Public Library) token program. Some of the most important additions include:
NonTransferable, enables soul-bound tokens that are tied to wallet addresses
InterestBearingMint, allows tokens gain value the longer you hold them
Transfer fees optionality
Transfer Hook extensions adds custom programs to NFT transfers
MintCloseAuthority, that enables closure of token mint accounts
Learn more about Token-2022 here.
Solana network performance improves
The Solana Foundation released the latest Solana Network Performance report. Network performance is a top priority and reliability is tracked by key metrics like:
Average monthly uptime
Ratio of voting to non-voting transactions
Block time (the time it takes to produce a block)
Average and maximum transactions per second
In order for a billion people to use and take advantage of the benefits of the Solana network, users need to feel confident in the network’s overall reliability.
View the status of all metrics here.
Armani runs the interview circuit
Validated Podcast w/ Austin Federa
Armani joined Austin Federa, Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation, for an episode of the Validated podcast.
In this episode, Armani reflects on the values and design philosophies that first attracted him to the Solana ecosystem and where he thinks the ecosystem is headed. He also discusses some of the tech behind xNFTS and Backpack, their use cases, and the importance of building applications users actually want.
Austin has been hosting the Validated podcast since July 2019! It hasn’t always been called Validated and originally launched under the name “Sharding, The Solana Podcast”.
Lightspeed Podcast w/ Blockworks and Helius
Garret Harper and 0xMert host the newly launched Lightspeed Podcast.
A podcast for crypto projects that enable new uses-cases and solve real problems.
Armani joined as the very first guest and the trio dived into numerous topics.
Backpack, Mad Lads and xNFTs
Why Armani loves Cosmos' vision
Community building
Solana's superpower
Blockworks released a full written recap of the podcast here.
Listen to the full episode here.
CoinGecko Virtual Meetup
The CoinGecko virtual meetup was another chance to talk about the future of Backpack and Solana.
Austin Federa, Armani Ferrante and Meow joined host Zhong Yang Chan for a fascinating conversation about everything Solana.
The virtual meetup was broadcast live, you can watch the recording here.
Sunday Stream #14 w/ Armani
Subscribe to Armani’s Twitch so you don’t miss another Sunday Stream!
Armani streamed from Dubai this week as the team finalizes it’s move to Asia.
The Sunday Streams remain the number one way to drink alpha right from the hose.
Building Backpack as a coliseum
Incentivized airdrops
NFT and Solana DeFi
XRP and Ripple
Ordinals hype
Ethereum L2s and roll ups
Backpack bugs
How to win with startups
Marketplace farming
Economic engines in web3
Robust token incentives
Monthly meetups in Singapore
Metacamp, a dedicated Solana workspace, is hosting a monthly Mad Lads meetup.
The first one will be held on Thursday, July 27th at 7PM (local time). Register now before all spots are claimed!
Solana Speedrun Game Jam
Speedrun is a competition where developers will create and launch a NEW blockchain game in just 120 hours. It is themed based and challengers have no hints about what the main theme will be before the event begins.
The game must be playable, it must match the theme and fall within the following tracks:
Fully on-chain
Solana-integrated
xNFT deployment
Speedrun is sponsored by MagicBlock and LamportDAO, the event is giving away $25K USDC in prizes that will be fairly distributed to challengers via community voting.
The winner of the xNFT deployment track will win a Mad Lad NFT!
RSVP on the Solana website to secure your position!
Cypher Protocol Teases xNFT
cypher is trading engine built on Solana. The group dropped an xNFT teaser this week. What do you think they’re building?
xNFT Library Hits New Milestone
More than 100 xNFTs have been added to Backpack’s xNFT Library.
One new xNFT comes from the Helius team.
Pyre is an education tool that gamifies the process of learning about developing on Solana. Some of the challenges include:
finding the number of leaves on a merkle tree
determine the number of transactions related to a cNFT
identifying the sales activity of an cNFT
You can download Pyre in the xNFT Library.
Virtual assistant tool Stache helps you manage your wallets.
Stache goes beyond just holding your assets. It allows you to manage subscriptions, pay bills, and seamlessly interact with other services, all without the need for manual intervention.
You can download Stache in the xNFT Library.
The Mad Wars Is In Full Swing
Mad Wars social trading competition is still going strong. The leaderboard has shifted immensely since the beginning of the Wars.
1st Place - Mad Generals
2nd Place - Mad Alberts
3rd Place - AI Lads
For more information about the Mad Wars, what you can win and how to participate start with our Mad Wars AMA.
The 0xMert Interview
We expanded the Mad News portfolio to include dives into Mad Lads adjacent projects like the Mad Wars blog linked above, as well as interviews with Solana’s most notable builders.
0xMert (co-founder of Helius) talked about his career as a software engineer, dropping out of college to work in web3, building Helius, his favorite xNFTs and advice for new developers.
