Fock Pasta 🍝 Mad News #50
Web3 has massive hiring gap, Mad Lads accidently deliver utility, Backpack Exchange adds EVM support, BONK goes big time at EDC Las Vegas and Superteam Japan is unveiled.
Welcome to the Mad News!
Web3 has a massive hiring gap 🖥️
Mad Lads founders promised zero utility, what gives? 😤
Lads holders slated to receive airdrop from Infinex 🪂
Backpack Exchange 🤝 Ethereum
Questlog reward claim period closing soon 🧙♂️
Backpack Exchange receives major homepage update 📊
BONK fits right in at EDC Las Vegas 🐶
Superteam opens up shop in Japan 🗾
…and much more!
Share this post and tag Mad Lads on Twitter/X!
Web3 has a massive hiring gap 🖥️
The Solana Foundation, Wormhole, Backpack, Helius and seemingly every other established blockchain brand are desperately seeking qualified candidates for crypto jobs.
Solana’s Job Board boasts 220+ listings and there are countless industry roles that are not being advertised for.
A LinkedIn search for “blockchain” returns 3000+ results (and that’s just for the United States!)
Backpack is also seeking talented engineers and the demand will continue as the platform scales.
See all Backpack job listings here.
Mad Lads founders promised zero utility, what gives? 😤
Mad Lads minters forked over 6.9 SOL for the promise of no utility and have so far been left disappointed.
Instead of getting rugged holders have:
received token allocations from Solana’s biggest platforms
obtained dozens of memecoin and cNFT airdrops
secured benefits like points multipliers on DeFi tools
witnessed the value of their NFTs skyrocket
…and many more experiences
The team is back to break promises again by releasing the Mad Lads VIP Program on the Backpack Exchange.
Holders who connect their NFT to the trading platform automatically qualify for VIP Tier 1 which substantially lowers Maker and Taker fees (52% and 36%).
See more details about the Mad Lads VIP Program here.
Lads holders slated to receive airdrop from Infinex 🪂
Mad Lads holders can join the Infinex Discord, sign up on Infinex and deposit a small amount of USDC to qualify for an elevated allocation of ‘GP’.
Infinex is a multichain platform spanning the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.
See more details about “Speedrun: The Waitlist” here.
Backpack Exchange 🤝 Ethereum
Backpack Exchange launched EVM support this week setting the stage for listings of popular Ethereum tokens like ETH, SHFL and NYAN.
SHFL is already live on the Exchange alongside a trading competition with a prize pool of 1,000,000 tokens.
NYAN, governance token of the uber popular Nyan Heroes video game platform, is set to be listed on Backpack in a few days.
Backpack Wallet began as a Solana native product and later expanded to support EVM tokens, Backpack Exchange is following suit.
Questlog reward claim period closing soon 🧙♂️
The clock is ticking for Questlog rewards as the initial claim period will come to an end on May 31st (12PM UTC).
If you received a reward from a previous event and haven’t claimed it, please go claim it on Backpack Exchange in the Questlog.
Backpack Exchange receives major homepage update 📊
Backpack Exchange added three new panels to help users monitor:
Recent Listings
Top Gainers
Experimental Assets
LAD OF THE WEEK: John Ennis
John Ennis is our LAD OF THE WEEK!
Many of our previous LOTW’s have made their mark on the Mad Lads community but a select few contribute not only to Solana but also the greater blockchain ecosystem.
John heads up the web3 platform NeoSwa, an AI powered trading tool focusing on crypto trades and Ordinal auctions.
As technology continues to advance, the retail sector is undergoing a significant transformation.
Innovations like artificial intelligence and blockchain are not just enhancing customer service but are also streamlining transactions and revolutionizing security. AI-powered tools like chatbots provide instant support, tailoring shopping experiences to your preferences and improving satisfaction.
Meanwhile, blockchain technology is automating transactions and reducing fraud, making shopping safer and more efficient.
He is an accomplished author with significant contributions to several advanced publications surrounding data science and consumer behavior.
When he’s not repping the Mad Lads brand you can catch John at the local cigar hangout sampling the world’s best tobacco.
Follow John now if you aren’t already!
BONK fits right in at EDC Las Vegas 🐶
If eyeballs are currency then BONK had their pockets bursting this weekend after a sponsorship run at EDC Las Vegas.
170k+ festival goers are expected to attend this year and every single one of them will be taking photos with the impossible to miss towering BONK statue.
The BONK memecoin has dominated the recent cycle and has a legitimate shot of achieving IRL name recognition like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu achieved last cycle.
Superteam opens up shop in Japan 🗾
Japan boasts a massive community of Solana maxis and they now have a formal organization to rally behind.
Superteam Japan launched with the goals of:
Increase community members' rewards through the "Earn" system, including bounties and grants, to boost "community GDP" in Japan.
Enhance the presence of Japan teams in global hackathons.
Support Japanese enterprises in developing products on Solana.
Foster promising Solana projects.
Conduct educational activities related to Solana.
Backpack’s headquarters are located in Tokyo and it will not be a huge surprise if a Mad Lads x Superteam Japan event is announced at some point.
Onboarding the next billion with content 📽️
New user onboarding to the blockchain presents a steep learning curve that can present a high amount of risk.
It continues to be one of the biggest challenges to solve before crypto can become mainstream and Jakey is attacking it with CONTENT.
Hey retail,
This video is for you. Wallet safety.
Colosseum chooses first accelerator cohort 🏟️
Colosseum concluded the inaugural Renaissance hackathon with the announcement of their first accelerator cohort.
Ten of Solana’s brightest startups will receive 1:1 mentorship, weekly collaboration sessions and an upfront investment.
Colosseum invests $250,000 in every startup accepted into the accelerator on founder-friendly terms.
Colosseum’s support doesn’t end once founders graduate from the accelerator. At Colosseum’s core is a community that founders can rely on to guide them throughout their journey. Founders will continue to have access to the private groups and tools provided via our online platform.
Ore - a new digital currency that allows anyone to mine using a novel proof-of-work algorithm on the Solana blockchain.
Urani - an intent-based swap aggregator bringing protection against toxic MEV at the application layer.
DBunker - an open network for DePIN financial derivatives and supply-side aggregation.
DeCharge - an EV charging network integrated with Solana, offering globally compatible hardware for affordable access.
Torque - a protocol for builders and dApps to deploy user acquisition strategies natively onchain.
Legends of the Sun - an old-school combat battle arena game with onchain wagering and an open marketplace.
MeshMap - a DePIN network enabling generalized 3D mapping data for mixed reality applications.
BlockMesh - a DePIN network that allows anyone to easily monetize their excess bandwidth.
Banger - a marketplace to buy and sell tweets while supporting creators, curators, and fun.
Rakurai - a new Solana client boosting TPS with proprietary scheduling & pipeline optimizations.
Encode x Solana developer bootcamp begins first week of June ✍️
Encode is back with another coding bootcamp designed for experienced developers who want to build on Solana.
A free, intensive, 6-week coding bootcamp to learn about Rust and building on Solana.
Hour and a half long classes run for six weeks straight, Monday-Thursday along with weekly homework assignments.
Graduates of the bootcamp receive a certificate and NFT.
AgriDex is on a mission to disrupt traditional agriculture 🚜
Solana’s rise to prominence is on the back of low latency speed and near-zero transaction fees.
That combination is particularly attractive to traditional industries looking to leverage blockchain technology such as real estate, payment processors and data storage providers.
AgriDex has it’s eyes set on disrupting agricultural supply chains using transactions on Solana to facilitate instant payments for producers, minimize legal documentation fees and creation of a digital marketplace where goods can be traded P2P.
The benefits of the platform include:
Reduce the cost of transacting for all parties
Reduce the risk of fraud for consumers
Improve access to markets for suppliers
Reduce the regulatory burden for suppliers
Improve transparency and choice for consumers
Improve sustainability standards in agriculture
Learn more about the AgriDex mission here.
Onchain loyalty program is massive boon for Boba Guys 📱
Boba Guys is one of the most significant examples of a traditional business expanding into the blockchain with Solana.
Their loyalty program ‘Passport’ launched in late 2023 and signed up 15k+ users by the end of the year.
The bubble tea retailer operates in the United States and reports that 50% of orders at their most popular California location are made with Passport.
"We always felt like the traditional loyalty programs out there were just basically glorified digital punch cards,” said Chen.
By building on Solana, the Boba Guys Passport program can do a lot more. The program rewards participating customers in interactive ways, earning them points for every visit, along with gamified features like loot boxes and loyalty tiers that unlock secret menu items — all improved by using blockchain technology.
Read the full Solana Case Study here.
PODCAST CORNER 🎙️
Validated
Austin chats with Andrey Falaleyev, CTO of Neon, an EVM that lets devs build and deploy dApps from EVM chains to Solana, all while maintaining compatibility with the EVM opcode set.
Andrey discusses Neon's decentralization and security, elucidating technical details around how Neon's parallelization works. He also sheds light on the kinds of teams interested in building on or migrating over to Neon.
Scraping Bits
Andrew Fitzgerald from Solana Labs discusses the design of the new scheduler in Solana validator version 1.18, which aims to improve transaction processing and network congestion.
He dives into the technical details of the central scheduling thread, the scheduling algorithm using a "prio-graph", and how transactions are intelligently assigned to worker threads based on account locks.
Future Podcast
In this episode of The Future Podcast, we sit down with the legendary Matty Tay, aka "The Hackathon Man" and "Colosseum Caesar."
Join us as we dive deep into the world of crypto hackathons, the growth of Solana, and the innovative Colosseum platform.
Matty shares his incredible journey from BTC to Solana.
The birth of Solana's hackathons and their massive impact on the ecosystem.
Insights into Colosseum's three pillars: Hackathons, Accelerator, and Funding.
The challenges and strategies for new projects entering the crypto space.
Future plans for Colosseum and the importance of building in public.
Logan Jastremski Podcast
Injective’s mission is to create a truly free and inclusive financial system through decentralization.
With the fastest blockchain built for finance, and plug-and-play Web3 modules, Injective’s ecosystem is reshaping a broken financial system with dApps that are highly interoperable, scalable and truly decentralized.
Lightspeed Podcast
This week we welcome Amir Haleem CEO of Nova Labs for a discussion on how Helium is building out DePin infrastructure to capture one of crypto's biggest opportunities.