Mad News #38 🎙️ Never Gonna Give Up Rickrolling
Mad Lads get rickrolled again, Backpack boasts billion dollar day, introducing the Wormhole integration, Exchange opens for business in United States and WNS support added to the Wallet.
Welcome to the Mad News! 🗞️
Mad Lads holders get rickrolled again
Backpack boasts billion dollar day
Growing the pie with new Wormhole integration
Exchange opens for business in the United States
Wallet devs ship WNS standard in record time
Zeta Markets adds special bonus for Backpack users
…and much more!
See our expanded language Mad News channels in Vietnamese, Chinese, Turkish, Spanish, Hindi, Tagalog, Arabic, Japanese and Portuguese.
Backpack in the news cycle 📰
yahoo! Finance - Solana-based Backpack Exchange Reaches $1B Daily Trading Volume 5 Days After Launching Pre-Season
Coin Telegram - Backpack surpasses $1B in 24-hour volume, announces Banxa partnership
Cryptopolitan - BACKPACK EXCHANGE PARTNERS WITH BANXA TO ENHANCE CRYPTO ON-RAMP SOLUTION
iGaming - Backpack Crypto Exchange Rolls Out in 11 U.S. States
The Infographic Series: Week 1 📊
Mad News is working with community member Gator to create a batch of infographics which provide snapshots of the Backpack and Mad Lads story.
Never gonna give you up, never gonna let Mad Lads holders down 🎙️
Rick Rolls and Mad Lads go together like copy and pasta.
Their history was solidified in the form of a soulbound Badge which was airdropped to all Mad Lads holders this week.
OG’s will never forget the day when Mad Lads rickrolled the entire Solana NFT ecosystem with their now infamous “Say Cheese” troll.
If you not paying 80 sol to get Rick Rolled by Armani Ferrante and Mad Lads, you aren’t a Solana legend
This was the best marketing move they could have done
Mad lads will live rent free in people's heads for weeks to come
There are milestones, and then there are MILESTONES 📈
Last week Backpack reported their first $800M trading volume day however that benchmark was smashed just a few days later.
The $1B day brought new eyeballs to the Exchange as this level of performance ranks in the same category as established powerhouse brands like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken.
The Pre Season trading competition has onboarded tens of thousands of active traders who are battling it out for a spot on the Leaderboard.
The Backpack Pre Season is such an awesome load test. Our systems have been absolutely hammered three days in a row. To get a concrete sense, checkout the trade feed.
Left is Backpack. Right is Binance.
Armani Ferrante was quick to point out that this is just the beginning and that “it takes multiple of these types of events to truly start a fire”.
Grow the pie with multichain interoperability 🥧
Backpack and Mad Lads are well known Solana brands but that did not stop the Wallet from supporting EVM tokens.
Backpack takes another step towards a native multichain experience with Wormhole-powered swapping, staking and NFT management.
This collaboration between Wormhole and Backpack is more than a technical enhancement.
It represents a shared vision for a seamless, secure, and user-friendly digital asset space, positioning Backpack as a leading platform for a comprehensive and delightful crypto UX.
Tristan Yver, founder of Backpack, teased “You’ll want to use Wormhole in Backpack Wallet” indicating that there may be rewards opportunity for Bridgers.
marginfi 🤝 Backpack?
If we’ve learned anything about the recent Backpack partnerships it’s that they start with a little playful banter on social media.
It would appear that marginfi is using the same playbook as Tensor and Wormhole.
It’s a party in the USA 🇺🇸
Residents of select regions in the United States can now complete the KYC process and start trading on the Backpack Exchange.
Services are limited to begin but will mature as US regulation becomes more defined.
Note that we will be rolling out the product slowly as we slowly venture into the states. Some markets and drop events may not be available in the near future.
Backpack Wallet devs bolster reputation of being 1000x shippers 🚢
Backpack devs dropped back to back surprise integrations starting with support of the WNS standard, an “extremely lightweight NFT standard built on top of Token Extensions.”
This unlocked access to Asset Dash’s Element's NFT collection and Tensor listing capabilities.
Dubbed the Wen New Standard (WNS 0.0), this innovative framework is built on the robust Token2022 infrastructure to enhance compatibility and flexibility across the digital asset landscape.
The architecture of WNS prioritizes decentralization and composability, emphasizing security and efficiency through the integration of Token Extensions.
Less than 24 hours later they shipped support for “hybrid NFTs” and a tool to convert SPL-20s into NFTs and tokens.
$GH0ST was made as an educational device to bring awareness to this new fair launch inscription standard, for fungible coins and soon even on-chain NFT art collections.
GHOST is the first “SPL22” token - something that is only possible on Solana with Token Extensions.
These integrations help cement the Backpack Wallet as a home for emerging Token Extensions products.
Advanced traders utilizing API tools to enhance experience on Backpack Exchange 🖥️
The Backpack Exchange is a CEX, however, it is built on core principles of decentralized blockchain philosophy.
This means allowing and encouraging crafty traders to utilize their technical prowess to add an edge to their trading experience.
API docs and clients for the Backpack Exchange:
Zeta Markets boosts Z-Score for Backpack Wallet users 🔥
Zeta Markets is boosting the "Z-Score” for traders using the Backpack Wallet when perp trading on their derivatives exchange.
Z-Score is the first step towards the launch of our token.
Built with users in mind, the program is designed to reward utilization of the Zeta DEX by offering users the opportunity to share in the future success of the protocol.
Zeta Markets entered the Backpack universe with their Mad Wars trading competition.
Mad Lads subcommunities battled against each other for *perp*etual domination and “eternal focking glory!”
Zeta Markets was one of the first projects to flex the capabilities of xNFTs and experiences in the Backpack Wallet.
For this first go round, we knew that the first step wasn't a direct port of the app into an xNFT - so the natural alternative was an xNFT that was app adjacent. Something that would allow us to explore the technology and use cases in order to further our understanding for deeper expansion in the future.
I think we all agree that even for Mad Wars, we're not leveraging the potential of xNFTs to their fullest - so in a lot of ways this is an experiment for us to learn and see what works.
LAD OF THE WEEK: 38K “Lads Farming Gold!” 🔮
38K falls into a special category of Mad Lads holder, the daily driver.
Daily drivers have dominated the LAD OF THE WEEK category due to their constant stream of support, they are an important part of the product development feedback cycle.
He is a thread writer, meme maker and fan artist who seemingly lives in the Mad Lads and Backpack comment sections.
This family man has a consistent cheery attitude and can always be found lending a helping hand in the Mad Lads Discord.
Make sure to follow 38K if you aren’t already!
IRL Mad Lads add depth to the community culture 💎
Mad Lads draws it’s strength from the holders, a community which operates on an entirely different level.
Ristretto goes MAD with his latest PC build.
Former LOTW Aslanbek flexes the Mad Lads IP.
edgar shreds the pow with Mad Lads on top of the mountain.
2024 is the year of the Hackathon 🤓
Solana hackathons have birthed billion dollar teams, helped incubate some of the most notable brands in the space and provided a catalyst for the most talented developers on the blockchain.
Recently they formed their first official hackathon division called the “Colosseum” which is a group devoted to sponsoring hackathons, grants and other builder first initiatives.
1,663 builders have signed up on the platform
Builder profiles from 82 countries
320 product idea forum posts + comments
209 cofounder connections
In addition, they are helping other platforms organize and fund their own hackathons, here are four ongoing or upcoming events for builders.
Superteam Germany’s Ideathon
We'll dive into forming a team, workshops to get started and a mini demo day to prepare you for the real deal. We'll then end the day with some food, drinks and Solana's famous mixer.
FluxBeam’s Token Extensions Hackathon
A call to everyone to push the boundaries of what's possible with Solana tokens.
Metaplex’s cHack
A compression-focused hackathon for developers building the future of Solana NFTs and NFT tooling with 1 million $MPLX up for grabs.
First Place – 250,000 $MPLX
Second Place – 100,000 $MPLX
Third Place – 50,000 $MPLX
Individual Tracks - 100,000 $MPLX each
Note: Armani Ferrante is a judge for this event.
Superteam Earn’s Solana Scribes
Superteam Earn is where crypto founders meet world-class talent. Distribute your work to crypto-native talent, meet your next team member & get things done fast.
Solana Developers team squashes conversation about chain maximalism 🏂
The Solana Developers team is descending on Denver, Colorado for a residency at the ETHDENVER event.
The team will be in attendance everyday at “BUIDLWeek” with a schedule of special Solana events:
BUIDLWeek Workshop (Feb 23)
Solana Booth (Feb 29)
Session Talk: Only Possile On Solana (Feb 29)
Mixer: Transitioning to Solana (March 1)
Mixer: Celebrating Solana Developers (March 2)
PODCAST CORNER 🎙️
Unlayered Podcast
Matty is the man behind some of the biggest hackathons in all of crypto (such as Grizzlython and Hyperdrive among many others). He recently left his role as Head of Growth at Solana Foundation to build Colosseum, an organization dedicated to running Solana-centric hackathons with a built-in accelerator for select winners.
Throughout this episode, we get into the nitty gritty of why hackathons have historically produced some of Solana's best projects (Tensor and STEPN for example) and how aspiring founders can best position themselves for success.
Solana Changelog
Feature activation, decoupling the SMV, and Rust v1.76
Lightspeed Podcast
This week, Nigel Eccles & Varun Sudhakar Co-Founders of BetDEX join the show to discuss how they are bringing online sports betting to crypto. We deep dive into the problem BetDEX solves, finding product market fit, scaling a sports betting competitor, why BetDEX chose to build on Solana & more!