Mad News #32 โ๏ธ Partnership Of The Year?
Teaser tweets from Tensor and Backpack send community into frenzy, new Wallet features ship, Matrica offers Lads whitelist, new Honorary NFT and conclusion to Noto Peninsula earthquake aide efforts.
Welcome back to the Mad News! ๐๏ธ
Backpack ๐ค Tensor?
Matrica places Backpack on top
BRAND NEW Backpack wallet functions
โMert without the hatโ honorary NFT
Armani is guest on two Spaces
Updates on the Noto Peninsula earthquake fund
โฆand much more!
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Check out the Podcast Corner at the end of every issue for a highlight of the best Solana podcast episodes.
Tensorโs teasing tantalizes Twitter โ๏ธโก
The Backpack and Tensor teams teased community members all week as rumors ran unchecked about what the future holds for the pair of Solana natives.
The hype narrative started with a simple ๐ emoji from Tensorโs co-founder, ilmoi and quickly gained a life of itโs own.
Both teams dropped videos which seemingly confirm some kind of collab but it is still unclear what the duo is up to.
Shipping silly simple Wallet features ๐ข
Backpack users have grown accustomed to near-weekly upgrades and new features.
Armani continues that trend with two โsilly simple featuresโ.
For Backpack wallet nerds out there, we just merged in two silly simple features coming to the next release that you
- won't be able to live without
- will wonder why hasn't anyone done this
It's so simple. So silly. But sometimes that's what you've got to do.
The first new function maintains scroll state when changing between the Tokens/Collectibles/Activity tabs.
Swap tabs without losing what you were looking at.
โNavigation persistenceโ is the second new function. This allows you to open your wallet to the location it was when last closed.
Your navigation persists, or stays in place, even if the extension closes.
Matrica Labs places Backpack on top and gives special nod to Mad Lads ๐
Matrica Labs joins the growing list of Solana dapps who prioritize Backpack as their preferred crypto wallet.
Matrica has noticed the massive success of Mad Lads and have placed the Backpack wallet to the top of our โPreferred Walletโ section
They went on to announce that Mad Lads holders will receive a whitelist to their upcoming Blocks collection release on the Bitcoin network.
Backpack makes onboarding look easy ๐ฅ
The Backpack experience is characterized by a low friction onboarding process while the Mad Lads provide a community support system that is second to none.
Armani Ferrante described the challenge that new user onboarding poses during a Breakpoint 2023 panel (watch the full length episode here).
Onboarding new users that are already in the industry is another difficult challenge that the Mad Lads have attacked head on.
Rarely a day goes by without a new member joining the community, there are now 4,557 unique holders.
The Mad Lads community has been impressing me for some time. They are solid at the core - forged in the depths of the Bear, not just fair-weather moonbois.
And now they have undeniably become one of the most sought after communities.
I have long spoken about how NFT collections could potentially earn awesome collective purchasing power, due not only to positive brand association, but also the huge value of getting the targeted attention of a strong and real community.
And thatโs why [Iโm] now glad to be Mad.
Armani speaks on back to back Spaces ๐๏ธ
More recently, Armani appeared on two Spaces this week.
Topics ranged from the current state of Backpack, Mad Lads role as a cultural arm and the nuance required for blockchain engineering.
Listen to the GM Show episode here.
Listen to The NFT Daily episode here.
Community fan art shows no signs of slowing ๐จ
Community fan art has been an integral part of the Mad Lads story beginning when the first design sneak peaks were leaked and continuing to today.
From artists who use AI to imagine the Lads in a different lightโฆ
โฆto designers who want to customize their Lads with a signature look (and share the ability with their fellow community members).
And then there are holders who commission physical works of art that honor their JPEGs.
Which brings us to our second ever LASSIE OF THE WEEK!
LASSIE OF THE WEEK: Swasti ๐๏ธ
Swasti is our LASSIE OF THE WEEK!
Avid Mad News readers will recognize Swastiโs work from numerous art-centric stories in past issues.
Her canvas paintings are a hot ticket item particularly within the DeGods, y00ts and Mad Lads communities.
Previous LOTW is featured in the video below, do you know who it is? ๐ค
Swasti takes JPEGs and brings them to life with each stroke of the paintbrush.
Make sure to give her a follow!
Noto Peninsula recovering from disastrous earthquake โฐ๏ธ
The community raised more than $20,000USD to help with recovery efforts after the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
We have chosen Peace Winds Japan as the recipient of this donation. We will be converting the crypto to yen and sending it to them this week.
Peace Winds Japan is a humanitarian aide organization that specializes in disaster relief and other conflicts.
Noto Peninsula is going to experience an extended evacuation and Peace Winds Japan will provide ongoing support for the families impacted by the earthquake.
In no other industry can you donate this much money, this quickly, with the least amount of friction from people all around the world. Crypto is a beautiful thing.
-Armani Ferrante
โMert without the hatโ is the newest honorary Mad Lad design ๐ผ๏ธ
CEO of Helius Labs and confirmed manlet Mert Mumtaz became the first ever recipient of a second honorary Mad Lad.
We had to honor Mertโs baldness
Mert received his first honorary NFT from the team in June 2023 with the update coming just this week.
Mad Lads holders receive another free airdrop ๐ช
Artist p.HarrisDesigns spread some beginning of the New Year cheer with an airdrop that landed in the wallet of every single Mad Lads holder.
It was only right to do one for the Lads since they are such a great community and always show support and love.
-p.HarrisDesigns
p.HarrisDesigns is a photographer and videographer who documents concerts and events for touring musicians.
My artwork style mainly features nature vibes or anything surreal and dream like. Got my [inspiration] from psychedelics.
Both Solana Japan and China plan late-January New Year parties ๐
Solana Japan hosts their first big bash of the year on January 23rd.
The community will get together to celebrate โKagami birakiโ, or, celebrate the beginning of the new year and growth of Solana Japan.
Solana China is celebrating The Year Of The Dragon alongside Backpack, Wormhole, Pyth and Marginfi.
Attendees will receive a limited run NFT and other exclusive gifts to help celebrate the beginning of a new year.
2024 is the year of Solana ๐โ๏ธ
Solana ended 2023 on a high note with a growing network of active developers, more than 40 million average daily transactions and a yearly high of over 450,000 unique users in the month of December.
$SOL sustained QoQ growth across many metrics in the quarter:
- Market cap โฌ๏ธ 423%
- DeFi TVL โฌ๏ธ 303%
- Average daily DEX volume โฌ๏ธ 961%
- Average daily NFT volume โฌ๏ธ 359%
Messari, the crypto research firm, delivered their โState of Solana Q4 2023โ report and results show that Solana has grown or maintained in almost every single category.
If 2023 was the year of building foundations, 2024 could be the year of Solana.
Developers are building on Solana longer.
โMeasuring monthly active developers is only part of the storyโ meaning that itโs also important to determine how long devs are staying with Solana and if they are launching matured products.
Solana Mobile cell phone come roaring back to relevance ๐ฆ
Solana Mobileโs Saga cellphone experienced a figurative rebirth at the end of 2023 as $BONK prices skyrocketed and it became known that Saga holders could claim 30,000,000 $BONK tokens.
14,000 [Sagas] activated - over 700 in 24H!
Over 6000 members in the Saga Mobile DAO
20,000 members in the official Solana Mobile Discord
Inventory sold out (only 20,000 Sagas were manufactured) within a week and it wasnโt long before the furry friends of Solana Mobile holders took over our timelines.
Superteam UAEโs Foundersโ Trek places spotlight on fastest growing crypto region ๐
Foundersโ Trek 2023 was organized and hosted by Superteam UAE. This IRL event focused on the verticals of web3 legal strategy, founder residency and managing venture funding.
Hundreds of Solana builders attended the event as Dubai becomes a home for cryptocurrency and blockchain companies.
Solfate recognizes the people responsible for building our blockchain world ๐
Solfate released the Solana DevList, a verified list of Solana Developer that can be used to help source new talent for projects as well as recognizes the efforts of Solanโs independent contributors.
There is no cost to join and each dev receives a non-transferrable membership token.
mtndaoโs head is in the clouds โ๏ธ
mtndao is one of the more popular hacker house events in the Solana ecosystem.
Dozens of developers will gather in downtown Salt Lake City in a few weeks to work together on Solanaโs hardest problems.
the notorious action packed hacker house hosted by cypher and marginfi.
Attendees will attend technical workshops, developer bootcamps, foundersโ school session and numerous leadership talks.
Registrations are still open, sign up here to attend.
Podcast Corner ๐๏ธ
Empire Podcast
Anatoly elaborates on the network effects of open-sourcing core technology like the SVM, while Ben highlights mobile adoption and NFTs as driving new crypto demand.
They debate the trajectory for permissionless finance to run mainstream markets on Solana, and whether the Saga phone can make a dent in Apple and Google's distribution monopolies.
Lightspeed Podcast
Josh Rosenthal joins us to discuss how crypto will unleash new business models, applications and markets! Josh is a historian, investor, founder and one of the most interesting people I know.
In this episode, we discuss crypto's key unlock, scarcity vs abundance, history's revolutionary technologies, crypto tribalism, the bidirectional door between the physical and digital world, DePIN, how to embrace change and more!
Eugene Chen joins us to discuss why Solana's local fee markets aren't real. Well, they are real, but they don't yet work as advertised. Eugene is the co-founder of Ellipses Labs, Phoenix Protocol, and Umbra Research and he is one of the sharpest builders in Solana!
In this episode, we discuss how Solana transactions work, how to improve Solana's fee markets, MEV on Solana, how apps can accrue their own MEV, Solana's DeFi risk, Phoenix's limit order book and more!