Mad News Rewind 📰 Issues #1-12 (June-August 2023)
Zooming out on the Mad Lads and Backpack story to highlight moments that led a small startup to international recognition.
Backpack Exchange did not exist when the Mad News launched in June 2023, by January 2024 it was the fastest growing CEX in crypto.
Dive into the events which have placed Backpack and Mad Lads on top of the Solana ecosystem.
June 2023
Issue #1 | Issue #2 | Issue #3 | Issue #4
Armani Ferrante’s Sunday Streams are a hallmark of Mad Lads culture
Jazz notes fill the airwaves as Armani answers questions in real time and occasionally leaks alpha that goes on to become bedrocks of Backpack technology.
These Sunday Streams acted as a direct user feedback funnel to improve the Backpack Wallet product and Mad Lads holder experience.
Mad Skulls begin their reign of supremacy
Mad Skulls are the most highly sought after Mad Lads NFTs. The ‘skull’ trait makes up a mere .93% of the collection.
Mad Skull #4862 recently sold for a record setting 1,000 SOL.
Since launch the group has only grown more elite, and held the line figuratively and literally. What does the future hold? Bullishness anon.
-R89
The Mad Validator launched operations on March 27th, 2023 and surpasses 500k staked SOL in June
Mad Validator has reached as high as 700k+ staked SOL during the early parts of 2024 and has now settled in the 500k+ range.
Learn how to Stake SOL in the Mad Validator here.
Jakey becomes the first member of the Mad Lads Roster
The Roster launched as a movement to propel the Mad Lads brand outside of crypto Twitter aimed at non-native blockchain users.
In an era saturated with content creators, The Roster stands out as a beacon of audacity and originality.
Staying true to the Mad Lads philosophy, they fearlessly venture into uncharted territories, delivering content that is bound to captivate audiences beyond Web3.
Jakey released a full length love-affair titled “MAD MOVIE 1” announcing that he was joining the The Roster.
Jakey went on to produce MAD MOVIE 2 and MAD MOVIE 3, each was bigger then the next.
MAD MOVIE 1 was our first introduction to Jakey and the “FOCK IT” mentality.
MAD MOVIE 2 took us on a pursuit of extreme fockin’ hobbies.
MAD MOVIE 3 cranks the action into overdrive as Jakey squeezes as much fun (and blood) out of Solana Summer as he can.
Jake Hillhouse, known in web3 circles as Jakey, has been a video content creator for years in the YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok worlds.
Solana Mobile’s Saga phones ship from factory with Mad Lads laser engraving
Mad Lads teams up with Solana Mobile to give out free engravings for holders of the NFT.
This is the first of multiple collaborations with Solana Mobile.
Mad Lads staking and soulbound inventory go live
Staking a Mad Lads NFT starts a counter that generates coins which are ‘soulbound’ to the NFT itself.
Soulbound means that all coins generated from staking are not be transferrable - they belong solely to the Mad Lad NFT and the wallet address it is staked with.
These coins live in a soulbound inventory system view that will look similar to Runescape and World of Warcraft game menus (more on that later).
Armani Ferrante releases long thread detailing ‘soul abstraction’ and what it means for the Mad Lads
Armani Ferrante goes deep explaining soul abstraction and how it adds a secured inventory component to the Mad Lads NFTs at both a high and digestible level.
The inventory system is a brand new paradigm in the NFT world, the concept that NFTs themselves can receive and store digital assets.
Soul Abstraction allows you to permissionlessly airdrop *arbitrary* protocols/assets onto an NFT without getting rugged *while* keeping that protocol/asset aligned with the NFT community as whole.
Backpack rugs opensource developers and pulls the plug on their public code repot
Backpack launched as an opensource platform which distributed its code base on GitHub however the team announced it’s closure at the end of June.
One year later we now know that was because work on the Exchange was beginning.
Honorary Mad Lads NFTs start to emerge
Meltem Demirors and Anatoly Yakovenko were the first IRL Lassies and Lads to receive a custom 1/1 Mad Lads NFT, they are minted on chain as part of the original Mad lads collection.
Meltem Demirors is an OG in the Solana world and joined CoinShares back in 2018. Popular on Twitter and in the media, Meltem is the ultimate Mad Lass.
Toly needs no introduction to most of you. For those living under a very large and heavy rock he is a founding member of the Solana blockchain, builder extraordinaire, Twitter fixture and driving force of Solana culture.
Mad Lads community is chocked full of A-list builders and personalities
The Mad Lads community is stacked with giga brains, rockstar devs, project founders, content creators, influential degens and many others working on web3 missions.
This was evident during the Mad Lads mint back in April but really began to shine in the following month with powerful forces in the ecosystem like:
July 2023
Issue 5 | Issue 6 | Issue 7 | Issue 8
Backpack sponsors an xNFT prize track during the Solana Weekend Hacks event in collaboration with Superteam Germany
The prize? A fockin’ Mad Lad.
Mad Lads begin relationship with Vietnam community that will eventually blossom into a strong partnership
Superteam Vietnam hosts a breakfast meetup where all friends of Solana and Mad Lads were invited.
Mad Lads Town Hall #10 hosted by Solana Legend on Twitter Spaces
Solana Legend began hosting the Mad Lads Town Halls during the insanity of the mint where more than 10,000 active listeners were tuned in.
Since then he has hosted nearly a dozen more, each delivering an update about the Mad Lads and Backpack ecosystem to the audience.
Backpack’s own Matt Callens drops an updated xNFT developer course
Although xNFTs have shifted off the main priority list for Backpack developers they still remain a cornerstone of the Backpack Wallet stack.
Tom and John put on a clinic at Breakpoint in 2022, although many things have developed on the platform since then, this is an excellent resource.
The Mert Interview: Building Solana Infrastructure
Mert is one of the most outspoken Solana advocates and a consistent voice in developer community.
In this interview he talks about life before the blockchain, working for Coinbase, building Helius and the best ways for traditional developers to begin in crypto
While at Coinbase, I knew I wanted to start a startup. I also knew that building on Solana was full of friction and “glass chewing”.
I had a lot of other ideas at the time but decided that the highest leverage impact I could have on the success of crypto was to build tools that would help others bring their ideas to life.
Mert
Mad Merch ships to holders across the globe
Mad Merch NFTs were distributed to holders after the mint and were used to claim a free piece of merch.
Rarity of the NFTs correlated to what merch you received ranging from simple t-shirts to high quality sweatshirts.
This first wave of merch has went on to become one of the most noteworthy branding mechanisms in all of web3.
Rogue Sharks was the first Solana collection to upgrade their NFTs to xNFTs
We caught up with the team to talk about the experience working with Backpack, their xNFT enabled artwork upgrades and the madness of launching an NFT collection on Solana back in 2021.
Tristan and Armani have also been incredibly supportive. I have tremendous respect for them as founders. They share my mentality: a rising tide lifts all boats.
August 2023
Issue 9 | Issue 10 | Issue 11 | Issue 12
Big wave surfer Tyler Larronde joins The Roster
Mad Lads added a new member to The Roster!
Tyler Larronde is a professional surfer that has been riding big waves since childhood.
Tyler chronicles his journey chasing waves, angling for the biggest fish and being a mad fockin’ lad on his Instagram as well as being featured in countless YouTube videos.
Blackfish becomes the inaugural LAD OF THE WEEK
LOTW has become a tradition of the Mad News, this group consists of the most elite supporters of Mad Lads and Backpack.
We are putting a special spotlight on the Lads and Lassies championing for Mad Lads and Backpack, starting with Blackfish.
We have went on to nominate dozens of the communities best, brightest and most degenerate LOTW's since then:
The Jon Wong Interview(s) show us what it’s like to work for Solana as well as delivers a brilliant ELI5 of what the blockchain is
Jon Wong is the head of Engineering at the Solana Foundation.
Software engineer, project manager, culture builder, public speaker, NFT maxi and recovering WoW addict - Jon has a unique set of skills that are needed in Web3.
We caught up with Jon in between the workplace grind and talked to him about building culture within the Solana Foundation, the direction that blockchain hiring might go and a potential xNFT alpha leak.
Read Part 1 of the series. here.
The boys are Backpack in town
Armani Ferrante and Tristan Yver reunite in Tokyo for the first time in several months.
Japan is officially home to Backpack.
Armani and Tristan begin what is to become an underrated catalogue of podcasts, interviews, Spaces, IRL panels and impromptu speeches at meetups
There are too many recordings of the Backpack founders to publish in this newsletter.
The duo has been going on the record and building in public since the first whispers of Backpack and xNFTs began to surface.
Since then they have posted hundreds of public appearances.
Nearly every one of them since June, 2023 (and some earlier) have been captured by the Mad News and I encourage you to peruse through old issues.
Nick Kapule joins the Roster
Nick Kapule is a foiler from Honalulu, Hawaii and became the Mad Lads newest Roster member.
From filming his encounters with giant sharks to tackling waves that would pummel mere mortals, Nick has all the hallmark traits of a Mad Lad.
Mad Lads brushes shoulders with one of the biggest brands in history for the first time
sms Tweeted this thoughtful and genuine post to Uber and it ended up becoming a moment in history for the Mad Lads brand.
Uber is one of the biggest brands in the world and they were paying attention to the Mad Lads that day.
Bonfida is an xNFT OG
Bonfida’s SNS Manager was featured in the very first issue of the Mad News. Since then they’ve released multiple improved versions.
This weeks updates include:
optimized functional layout
added profile management tools
streamlined buying process
Download from the xNFT Library here.
Longtime Solana fixture Austin Federa awarded title as Honorary Mad Lad
Austin Federa is the latest recipient of an honorary Mad Lads NFT.
Bloomberg guest, podcast host, Solana ecosystem builder, unforgettable event organizer and consistent source of perspective on Twitter are just a few ways to describe Austin Federa.
Mad News went on to interview Austin several months later and he left us with a lasting belief in the future of Token22 (known as Token-2022) at the time.
