🌌 Project Infinity Stones | Mad News #49
🌌 Project Infinity Stones | Mad News #49
Mad Meetups in Istanbul and Manila, Armani's podcast journey, preparing for Breakpoint 2024, memecoin season still in full swing, Zeta Markets rewards Mad Lads holders
Welcome to the Mad News!
Ethereum (ETH) trading goes live on Backpack Exchange 📊
Mad Meetups are a monthly occurrence 📆
Building in public is a super power 💪
Solana Breakpoint 2024 is just four months away ⏱️
Backpack Wallet token swaps dominated by memecoins 🪙
Zeta Markets partnership pays off for Mad Lads holders 🤝
Vorld places Lads On Top for upcoming token allocation ⬆️
Shuffle spins up ode to Backpack’s early days 🫘
…and much more!
Share this post and tag @MadLads on Twitter/X!
Ethereum (ETH) trading goes live on Backpack Exchange 📊
Spot trading for ETH/USDC launched on the Backpack Exchange after many months of anticipation.
Onboarding Ethereum (ETH) is the first step in welcoming an entirely new demographic of crypto traders to the Exchange.
Learn more about Ethereum and the ETH token here.
Mad Meetups are a monthly occurrence 📆
Mad Meetups span the globe and range from community organized brunches in Hanoi, Vietnam to carefully curated events like the Mad Lads birthday celebration in Tokyo, Japan.
Reach out to Benzel Blogs if you have interest in hosting a Mad Meetup in your city.
Istanbul, Turkey 🇹🇷
Mad Lads, Jito and Superteam Turkey put their rings together and formed an after-hours mixer during the Crossroads conference in Istanbul.
The seaside event hosted Mad Lads holders and maxis alike in a brightly lit hall which was adorned with swag.
Regional Superteams are instrumental in organizing local events and you will see this kind of collaboration again in the future.
Manila, Philippines 🇵🇭
Five thousand miles away, vibes were high as the Mad Lads took over a nightclub in Manila.
The Philippines are home to one of the largest regional groups of holders, this was the second Mad Lads event in six months and more are planned in the future.
Building in public is a super power 💪
A constant of the Backpack and Mad Lads story is the consistent presence of founders Armani Ferrante and Tristan Yver on podcasts, panels, interviews and Spaces.
Jump to 26:40 for the beginning of Armani’s interview with The Nifty.
Building in public and inviting conversation provides rapid feedback from users which can be handed over to the developers for immediate pivots.
Listen to the interview on Twitter/X here.
Solana Breakpoint 2024 is just four months away ⏱️
Solana Breakpoint 2024 takes place in Singapore, a country that is world-renowned for their positive outlook and support of blockchain technologies.
General admission tickets ring up for $500 but there are many avenues to get a discounted rate.
Dedicated degens often wait for last-minute ticket giveaways the month leading up to Breakpoint.
Solana announced the first batch of speakers and it is already inducing FOMO in people who will not be making the trip to Singapore.
Buy your tickets to Solana Breakpoint 2024 here.
Backpack Wallet token swaps dominated by memecoins 🪙
A non-custodial Wallet and xNFTs were the Backpack team’s initial product focus when the brand launched in 2022.
Swap was one of the first major functions implemented and is facilitated by one of Solana’s biggest DEXs, Jupiter.
Furry four legged memecoins continue their reign atop of the Swap charts (along with aforementioned partner, Jupiter).
Zeta Markets partnership pays off for Mad Lads holders 🤝
Zeta Markets has gamified their upcoming token launch in reward for a significant portion of the ($Z) allocation.
Holders must visit the Zeta Markets app and ‘pledge allegiance’ to the Mad Lads as well as execute trading volume to qualify for the allocation.
Each community has been allocated $Z, roughly proportional to the number of eligible users from their community. These allocations are fixed and can only go to members of the respective communities.
Vorld places Lads On Top for upcoming token allocation ⬆️
Vorld is tapping into early-Solana nostalgia with an NFT mint allocation for Mad Lads holders, ASTROKIDZ.
In 2080, a fleet of spaceships embarks on a 14-year journey, taking children on an expedition named Aquatica Odyssey. As one of these astrokidz, you're on a mission to explore the enigmatic destination known as Aquatica.
This voyage into the unknown marks the beginning of an extraordinary adventure, revealing the mysteries and purposes of this interstellar journey
Click here to learn more about the ASTROKIDZ allocation.
Backpack Exchange boasts hidden gems 💎
Backpack devs ship new features and upgrades at a cheetahs pace, did you catch this one?
On Backpack Exchange, you can select your favorite markets and instantly access them via the footer 🎒
Backpack
Backpack Wallet built for advanced traders 📈
Sometimes the most simple solutions end up becoming an advanced feature that sets a product apart from it’s competitors.
Backpack Wallet executes this beautifully with a streamlined Seed Phrase import process which lives on the home screen.
Shuffle spins up ode to Backpack’s early days 🫘
Backpack’s “Saturday, live from Chicago” inspired Shuffle to recreate the now-iconic beanbag war room photo.
Shuffle posted the image with one emoji: 🎒
Could this be a play out of the Backpack partnership playbook?
Shuffle is one of Solana’s leading crypto betting platforms which has released a native token of their own, ($SHFL).
LAD OF THE WEEK: CONSPI 🎒
Our LOTW demonstrates that consistent purposeful action wins every time.
Someone once said to me, “Your ambition will kill you.”
I swear it made me more ambitious
CONSPI is a relative newcomer to the Lads community who appeared during the ($ARMENI) onboarding wave.
Since then he has become a mainstay in every comment section of the Mad Universe.
His LADS GONE MAD collection focuses on the most prolific Mad Lads maxis who flex the strongest fock it mentality (there are five former LOTW’s pictured below).
The 1/1 illustrations escaped the computer screen and materialized IRL at the Mad Lads Istanbul meetup.
What motivates CONSPI?
If you haven’t followed CONSPI already, do it now!
Putting Solana on game 🎮
GameShift was forged during the deep bear market of early 2023 and has since emerged as the premier accelerator of blockchain videogames.
No Crypto Needed
Your team and your players don’t need crypto tokens — GameShift interactions are all in fiat currencies from minting to marketplace.
Video game developers look to the Solana blockchain for the same reason DeFi is flourishing: lightning-fast transaction speeds and near-zero fees.
Many game studios built on Google Cloud want to tap into the creative potential of Web3 technology, but the inherent technical complexities have been a major barrier to broader adoption.
By bringing GameShift into Google Cloud’s ecosystem for living games, we're giving developers a streamlined path to build immersive blockchain experiences without wrestling with the underlying technology.
Start building with GameShift today.
Hackathons are the single biggest driver of Solana growth 🖥️
IRL Hacker Houses have been a hallmark of Solana community building and their focus on offline hackathons has fostered hundreds of relevant startups.
Colosseum was created to act as Solana’s official hackathon shepherd who just released the results of the biggest collective event in blockchain history.
8,300+ participants.
1,071 submissions.
Builders from over 95 countries.
Colosseum’s Grand Champion is a now familiar brand who succeeded in capturing the attention of Solana before results were announced.
Ore, a new digital currency that enables anyone to mine using a novel proof-of-work algorithm on the Solana blockchain, received the Grand Prize of $50,000 USDC, along with passes to attend Breakpoint 2024 in Singapore, Sept. 19-21.
Colosseum, Announcing the Winners of the Solana Renaissance Hackathon
BuildWithMonkeDAO embarks on new mission to inspire Solana builders 🔨
BuildWithMonkeDAO (BWMD) initially launched as a steward for Solana Foundation grants and managed $50k+ USDC in allocations.
They recently announced a partnership with Metaplex and have now released their new mission directives.
The BuildWithMonkes program was founded with the interest of supporting builders.
Today we seek to grant funds for:
Public goods
Consumer facing products
Projects building in the digital asset economy
And much more!
Bonus points for plans to go open source. 🤝
Solana Monkey Business (parent of BWMD) has a direct connection with Backpack, they were one of the first Solana bluechip collections to embrace xNFTs.
View the BuildWithMonkeDAO grant application form here.
Sniper’s hybrid DeFi protocol is #OnlyPossibleOnSolana 🔨
Sniper (better known as SolSniper) is one of the oldest and most established companies built on the Solana blockchain.
The project originated as a source of truth for NFT data and has since expanded to be an marketplace specializing in adding DeFi tools for JPEG traders.
Sniper made waves in the Solana ecosystem again with the announcement of their Launchpad which has a focus on ‘hybrid’ NFT projects that utilize Token2022 extensions.
View Sniper Launchpad requirements here.
Solana is for comics! ✍️
dReader is a comic-centric platform whose story is similar to most Solana successes: they were built during the bear market (two bear markets to be exact).
Fast forward to 2024 and dReader has paid out more than $100,000 to comic creators in just three months.
Tensor, Liberty Square, DRiP, Todd McFarlane, Degen Ape Academy, John Le and hundreds of other projects have launched comics on dReader.
Download the dReader dApp on the Solana Mobile Saga today!
PODCAST CORNER 🎙️
Filecoin Foundation Podcast
In this conversation, Aaron Stanley interviews Austin Federa, the head of strategy at Solana Foundation.
They discuss Solana's Filecoin integration, the concept of DePIN and its importance in the Solana ecosystem, the role of meme coins in stress testing, Solana's performance and architectural decisions, and the upcoming Fire Dancer upgrade.
Validated Podcast
In this episode, Austin chats with Nitesh Nath of DFlow, a protocol that protects DEX liquidity against toxic order flows on Solana. According to Nitesh, users of DFlow will gain benefits such as tighter spreads, lower volatility, and more efficient price discovery, among others.
He explains DFlow's unique system of "endorsers" for identifying types of order flow, presenting a long-term vision of sustainability for the protocol.
InvestAnswers
Unique quant observations on the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world: How to front-run Wall St and Hedge Funds and benefit from the emergence of Bitcoin and Crypto--early adopters will gain and a whole new class of millionaires and billionaires will emerge.
Lightspeed Podcast
This week we're back with another weekly roundup. We discuss will Solana flip Ethereum, L1 vs L2 value accrual, Van Eck's meme coin index & the SocialFi hype.
This week we welcome FP Lee to the show for a discussion on the growth of liquid staking on Solana. We deep dive into launching LSTs, value accrual, solving liquidity issues & some of the products sanctum is building.
Logan Jastremski Podcast
Matty Taylor is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Colosseum - the world's most competitive online hackathons, where elite crypto builders launch startups on Solana.