Mad News Issue #43 🌪️ $W Trading Launches April 3rd
Mad News Issue #43 🌪️ $W Trading Launches April 3rd
Parcl allocates tokens for Mad Lads holders, Backpack Beta Testing Program is recruiting, Tensor Adventure quest begins, introducing Backpack's new CFO and the Sidebar integration breaks internet.
Welcome to the Mad News! 🗞️
Parcl allocates tokens for Mad Lads holders
Squash bugs in the Backpack Beta Testing Program
Tensor Adventure quest live on Exchange
Backpack’s new CFO
Sidebar integration breaks internet all over again
xNFT newcomer ‘Solana Revoker’ helps safeguard wallets
SolMail introduces email to the blockchain
…and much more!
Headlines 📺
CoinDesk - Crypto Exchange Backpack Appoints Stripe, Banking Veteran as CFO
CRYPTOHOLIC - Săn big Airdrop Backpack và Tensor
CoinDesk Indonesia - Semua yang Perlu Kamu Ketahui Tentang Backpack
Parcl latest in long line of brands elbowing for Mad Lads attention 🏡
Trad real estate aligned Parcl announced that a significant allocation of their upcoming token release, PRCL, is headed for Mad Lads holders wallets.
Parcl lets users trade digital versions of real estate which mirror the actual real time price of residential and commercial property in an IRL geographic zone.
Squash bugs in the Backpack Beta Testing Program 🪲
*Technically* the Backpack suite of products is still in beta (along with the entire Solana ecosystem) however not all beta modes are made the same.
Hundreds of users are trialing the new mobile Exchange app and providing feedback directly to Backpack developers.
Sign up here if you want to squash bugs.
Come on Lads, we’re going on an Adventure 🔥
Backpack and Tensor have returned with another gamified event that ties the two platforms together and ends with a bounty of $TNSR.
View the requirements for the Tensor Adventure here.
Tensor Adventure sends users on a quest to execute an NFT transaction on the Tensor marketplace before returning to the Exchange for a round of trading volume.
To be eligible for the $TNSR Drop on Backpack Exchange, you must have a trade on Tensor (http://tensor.trade) using your Backpack Wallet.
Rewards will be determined based on your Backpack Exchange volume and this Tensor activity.
This partnership started back in February with the Backpack Wallet points multiplier for Tensor’s Season 3 trading competition.
Users received a substantial bonus for using the wallet to conduct marketplace business.
Backpack’s employee roster is filled with proven operators ⛰️
Oliver is not a new face around the Backpack offices however last week’s announcement may be the first time that users were introduced to the new CFO.
I'm excited to join Backpack Exchange as one of the most trusted and exciting crypto asset exchanges in the space. I'm proud to bring my experience in liquidity, risk management and finance to further.
The ultramarathoner has been hard at work on the Backpack mission since the earliest days.
Oliver, the new CFO of our regulated entities, has extensive experience working in both finance and digital assets at regulated financial institutions.
We are excited to have him help us operate at the highest levels of transparency and accountability.
G’day m8, Backpack is a sick c*** 🌏
Blockchain Australia is a nonprofit that advocates for blockchain builders.
They welcomed the Backpack Exchange with open arms and made them an official member of the web3 community in Australia.
Blockchain Australia encourages and advocates for the adoption of blockchain technology by industry and governments across Australia as a means to drive innovation in service delivery across all sectors of the economy.
This week in Backpack 🎒
The Backpack universe is popping off at an unprecedented rate - here is an (almost) encompassing look at what has transpired over the last few weeks.
Backpack Wallet is points booster on MarginFi
Similar to the Backpack x Tensor points multiplier, MarginFi users receive a 5% overall boost on all trading activity.
Zeta Markets introduced a similar booster earlier this month.
Exchange x Wallet experience
Side panel mode was introduced for the Backpack Wallet and fans’ response was overwhelmingly positive - so positive that devs placed a Wallet toggle directly in the Exchange UI.
Devs continue to crank out new token offerings
Both RENDER and WEN trading pairs are live for KYC’d users.
Quest Log expands in both function and challenges
Current ongoing events include:
Volume Matters Phase 2
Refer and Earn
Wen and Earn
Tensor Adventure
Referral rebates distributed for first time
Referral rebates will now be claimable on a weekly basis.
Advanced Trading view introduces interactive markets menu
Navigate across trading pairs in one click as well as Favorite your most used markets.
Manage spam NFTs and tokens in the Backpack Wallet ❌
With the rise of cNFTs has come a glutton of spam NFTs that seem to find their way into every active wallet on the blockchain.
Here is an instruction on how to hide spam NFTs from your Collectibles tab.
Tokens are no different as memecoin season has swept through Solana.
One way you can combat them is by visiting the Manage token display menu (located at bottom of Tokens tab).
Mad Seoul popup event goes mad 🎉
A41 & moa hosted the Mad Seoul Pop Up in the heart of Gangnam-gu for a mad evening alongside BUIDL Asia and ETH Seoul.
As we dive into the heart of BUIDL Asia and ETH Seoul, we're bringing the Mad Lads community right to you.
Whether you're a die-hard Mad Lads holder, a Solana enthusiast, or just passionate about the NFT scene, this is where you want to be.
Custom merch, a live DJ and open bar greeted attendees - we’re unsure of how many people showed up but nearly 500 RSVP’d.
LAD OF THE WEEK: Lyon Farrell 🏂
Our LOTW is a future Olympian, world champion shredder, Roster member and overall chill dude - Lyon Farrell.
Lyon is the most prolific clip maker on The Roster who dominates Instagram and Twitter feeds.
Lyon Farrell has action sports stardom in his genes. Lyon's father is a legendary big-wave surfer and his mother was a two-time Windsurfing World Champion who won a gold medal at the first-ever X Games.
This proud Lad is an active competitor who travels all over the world to compete against thousands of ranked adversaries.
Make sure to give Lyon a follow if you haven’t already!
Mad Skulls are more interesting than CryptoPunks 💀
Mad News doesn’t typically track the price action of Mad Lads.
First of all it’s kind of tacky but more importantly focusing on the price of a JPEG detracts from the missions that web3 represents.
However… sometimes we like to be tacky.
Pikenians come equipped with Backpacks 💎
Pikenians is a community created and managed NFT fanclub of Pike Finance, the DeFi platform which recently allocated a significant portion of their token drop to Mad Lads holders.
They placed a major community call to action in support of the Backpack Wallet.
We ask all holders to:
Import your Phantom seed phrase to Backpack OR send your Pikenian to your Backpack Wallet if you already have one.
Backpack Wallet users receive substantial bonus on Zeta Markets and MarginFi 🪙
The MarginFi booster is retroactive on previously earned points for the entirety of time you use the Backpack Wallet.
Quick reminder that using Backpack Wallet on MarginFi gives you a 5% boost on all of your points.
Start trading perps on Zeta Markets today.
xNFTs continue to test boundaries of what crypto dApps are capable of 🔑
GoPlus Security is the latest platform to launch tooling as an xNFT for use in the Backpack Wallet.
Solana Revoker is a tool that check and manage your approvals on Solana, and revoke any outdated or risky permissions to safeguard your wallet.
In the Mad Blogger’s case it picked up on the Collection Locking that is in place for some of my collections.
Note: xNFTs must be opened via the xNFT Library.
Solana’s IRL Hacker House tour making stop in Dubai 🖥️
#HackerHouseDubai is a two day IRL event which kicks off on April 15th and 16th ahead of the World Blockchain Summit.
The Solana Hacker House is a two-day offline event with talks, panels, and workshops by industry thought leaders, in-person guidance from Solana Labs and Solana Foundation team members, and networking opportunities with Solana ecosystem teams.
Circle launches new Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol on Solana 🤝
Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (better? known as CCTP) enables Solana developers to spin up secure $USDC transfers between blockchains.
The protocol is powered by dozens of bridges and infrastructure providers spread across:
Arbitrum
Avax
Base
Ethereum
Noble
Optimism
Polygon
Solana
#CCTP empowers developers to build mainstream experiences where users never need to think about which blockchain they’re holding $USDC.
Push complexity to the background.
Exchanges and marketplaces can accept $USDC payments from users on multiple chains and rebalance their treasury holdings with #CCTP behind the scenes.
Listen to a Space with Circle, Solana, Wormhole, Sphere Labs and many more here.
SolMail introduces email to the blockchain ✍️
“Can your blockchain email you?” said Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko.
SolMail is a communication protocol that enables users to send and receive emails using a Solana wallet address.
FUN FACT: The first email on Solana was successfully sent on March 25th, 2:00 PM EDT.
Ackee Blockchain Security introduces School of Solana Season 5 🎓
School of Solana is a no-cost 9 week course which teaches students the Rust programming language as well as skills to code, debug and review Solana programs.
Successful devs who complete the course emerge with an accredited certificate and major leg up on the competition.
Education is in the DNA of AckeeBlockchain
Besides Auditing Solana protocols, we teach blockchain courses at the Czech Technical University in Prague. 🧑🏫
School of Solana has been teaching web3 to developers since 2022, and Season 5 is the best one yet.
Applications close on April 7th so make sure apply before you miss out.
What if you could move money as fast as the internet? 📬
Solana’s #OnlyPossibleOnSolana series is back in full swing as crypto fever surges.
Decaf is a blue chip brand which helps users manage their finances in a decentralized manner no matter where they are located in the world.
Top 10 DeFi themes to watch on Solana 💰
Superteam has been exploring different content verticals and their threads have become must-reads for every Solana investoor.
This week they dropped a list of and justifications for different areas to keep an eye on in the DeFi world:
The Next Generation of Money Markets
Interest Rate Derivatives — Unchartered Territory
Time for Derivatives to Shine!
Building Infra for DeFi Protocols
MemeFi and Making DEXs More Vertical
DeFi Stablecoins Mechanisms Will Get Wilder
(Re)Staking and LSTs – Moneyness of SOL
Making RWAs composable with DeFi
Protocols Tending to Become Platforms
Interfaces (UX Agreggators) will become stronger
Superstories: Meeting Solana’s Most Valuable Builders 🦸
Superteam Germany’s most recent superstory focuses on Orion, a prolific web3 builder who is currently rocking a sick Android Mad Lads PFP.
His first project was a Discord-based sales bot that ended up breaking out and becoming a benchmark success.
Orion started spending all of his time perfecting the bot, only taking breaks to mint NFTs for bigger and bigger sums.
He started neglecting university, staying up all night to write code.
After four or five months, the team had reached a goal that seemed unrealistic at first: making enough “magic internet money” from their bot to buy brand new laptops for themselves.
PODCAST CORNER 🎙️
仮想通貨チャンネル - Joe Takayama
Backpack’s own Takenori Nagatani joined Joe for a Japanese-language breakdown of everything Backpack Exchange and Wallet.
Logan Jastremski Podcast
Robinson Burkey is the Co-Founder of Wormhole Foundation.
Lightspeed Podcast
This week, Robin Hanson & Proph3t join the show to discuss one of crypto's most exciting experiments... Futarchy.
With the launch of MetaDAO, Proph3t aims to enable a market driven approach to social governance. By implementing Robin's proposed system of Futarchy, could this be a way to fix DAO governance?
This week, Jon Victor Co-Founder of Ansa Research joins the show for a discussion on one of crypto's most exciting areas... DePin.
We deep dive into why decentralized data storage matters, Filecoin's roadmap, the intersection between AI & DePIN & so much more. Enjoy!
Validated
In this episode, Austin talks with Ahmad Abbasi (Syndica) about Sig, a new Solana validator client built in Zig.
Unlike other Solana validator clients, Sig is optimized for reads as opposed to writes. Ahmad unpacks the seemingly herculean task of writing a new validator client from scratch and why this was an important decision for Syndica's core business of providing RPC node infrastructure.
He explains Zig's unique advantages in this context and how Sig will ultimately make running validators node more accessible for the entire ecosystem.
Chewing Glass
In this episode, Chase chats with Matty Taylor, Clay Robbins, and Nate Levine, co-founders of Colosseum, an organization for Solana builders that integrates three pillars: Hackathon, Accelerator, and Venture Fund.