Mad News #8: Aliens Exist And They Are Mad
xNFT game development challenge, month-long IRL hackathon in Salt Lake City, cNFT support for Backpack, Superteam Vietnam's xNFT workshop, a community raised Mad Lads fund and the Solana Bootcamp.
TL;DR
Catch up on last week’s issue of Mad News in 60 seconds!
Follow us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for bonus video content.
Solana Legend covers everything in the Mad Lads and Backpack ecosystem during the Townhall Spaces series. Listen to the full Townhall here.
Armani Ferrante streams LIVE on Twitch every Sunday. It is the #1 source of Mad Lads and Backpack alpha.
Subscribe to Armani’s Twitch so you don’t miss another Sunday Stream.
Solana summer is heating up
July 26 to 30 - Solana Speedrun Game Developer Challenge
August 1 to Sep 1 - mtnDAO “Only Possible On Solana” Hackathon (USA)
August 4 to 6 - Solana Summer Fest (USA)
August 24 - Superteam Singapore’s Monthly Mad Lads Meetup
Aug 31 to Sep 3 - Berlin Hacker House (Germany)
Sep 14 to Sep 17 - Bengaluru Hacker House (India)
Sep 21 to Sep 24 - Mumbai Hacker House (India)
October 30 to November 3 - Breakpoint (Netherlands)
Table of Contents
Mad Lads & Backpack
Solana Ecosystem
Solana Gamejam is happening right now
Solana’s Speed Run Gamejam is a challenge for blockchain game developers. The Backpack track offers up a Mad Lad NFT for the best game deployed as an xNFT.
The competition started on Thursday and will end on Sunday.
We covered all the requirements, prizes and more in last week’s issue of Mad News.
“Are you ready to farm some DeFi anon?” Tweeted game dev Blockiosaurus as they leaked a first look at this xNFT entry.
Only Possible On Solana (OPOS) hackathon in Salt Lake City, Utah
The monthlong OPOS hackathon by mtndao begins on Monday.
OPOS is being hosted and sponsored by Solana powerhouses like Helius, Phantom, Balaji, Helium, cypher, marginfi, Lamport DAO and more!
August 6-12: AI week
August 13-19: DePin week
August 20-26: xNFT week
Saving the best for last, xNFT week is dedicated to helping builders deploy dapps on Backpack.
Learn how you can attend the OPOS hackathon here.
cNFT support confirmed for Backpack
Armani has talked about compressed NFT support during recent Sunday Streams but this was the first *official* confirmation.
DeFi Land drops xNFT game teaser
DeFi Land was one of the first Solana projects to build on Backpack and they continue to fill that early mover role with this dedicated xNFT game teaser.
Mad Lads lead Solana NFT marketcap
The Mad Lads NFT collection launched on April 21st, 2023 and has dominated the Solana secondary market ever since.
Crypto Graham compiled Solana NFT collection data that shows how collection popularity has changed over the last two years.
MyMTV xNFT developed in two days
MyMTV is an xNFT that was ideated, coded and deployed in only two days during the recent Superteam Germany “Weekend Hacks” event.
Created by Elizabeth, the xNFT is filled with classic MTV hits that you can stream directly in the dapp.
Superteam Vietnam’s xNFT workshop
Superteam Vietnam hosted a Mad Lads meetup two weeks ago and doubled down with an xNFT workshop a few days ago.
“About 30 developers were introduced to xNFT and how to build their own first executable NFT that runs in the Backpack wallet”
Solana Tokyo meetup ft. Mad Lads artwork
A Solana Tokyo meetup sponsored by Orca featured Mad Lads artwork.
Community driven effort raises funds for active member
0xBlackfish, of Mad Wars fame, spearheaded a donation campaign that generated enough funds to purchase a Mad Lads NFT from the floor.
Armani Ferrante donated the final SOL needed to make this campaign a success during his latest Sunday Stream.
Sunday Stream #15 was filmed in Dubai
Sunday Stream #15 was filled with fireworks as Armani reflects on the success of Mad Merch, demo’d new Backpack features and helped make a community members dream come true.
life in Dubai
showing chat some love
Mad Merch and Rick Roll memories
reviewing the Mad News
advice for young developers
Mad Lads royalties
community scholarships
new Backpack features demo
opinion on revenue share projects
NFTs aren’t tokens
rewards programs
harsh reality of Solana NFTs
they utility of cNFTs
Honorary Mad Lad gifted to 0xMert
While funds were being raised for community members an “honorary” Mad Lads was being created for 0xMert.
Mert is a co-founder of Helius, an infrastructure platform that heavily supported the Mad Lads team during mint season.
Jakey films MAD MOVIE 3
Jakey comes at us with a behind the scenes look at MAD MOVIE 3.
He dropped alpha on Twitter that he was breaking records with MAD MOVIE 3, what kind of records can you break in a suit?
Solana starts to pull ahead in user adoption race
A new report from Step Data Insights highlighted that Solana is generating 2x more fees than Polygon blockchain.
This is especially noteworthy when you consider how inexpensive Solana transactions are compared to Polygon.
Solana Bootcamp
The core Solana developer team has done something that no other blockchain has managed to do so far.
They created a comprehensive guide to developing products on Solana:
basic concepts and architecture
how to code your first program
introduction to DeFi and building staking apps
advanced DeFi concepts and building swap pools
advanced programs for on-chain arbitrage
utilizing Solana Pay
Click here to view the full Solana Bootcamp video series.
The Rogue Sharks Interview
We caught up with the team to talk to the Rogue Sharks about the experience working with Backpack, their xNFT enabled artwork upgrades and the madness of launching an NFT collection back in 2021.
