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Mad Mint: How The Mad Lads Broke The Internet

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Mad Mint: How The Mad Lads Broke The Internet

The Mad Lads NFT launch was plagued with extortion demands, DDOS attacks, RPC node failures and attempted smart contract exploits. Five months later we look back at everything that transpired.

Benzel Blogs 🎒🔠
Sep 15, 2023
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Mad Mint: How The Mad Lads Broke The Internet

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The Mad Lads 4/20 launch was plagued with extortion demands, DDOS attacks, RPC node failures and attempted smart contract exploits - all of which caused delays.

In spite of these challenges the Mad Lads team emerged victorious but it could have turned out much differently.

“Heavy Demand for Mad Lads NFT Generates Instant Sell Out, Bullish” is how the headline SHOULD have read.

Take a step back in time as we examine the days leading up to mint, highlight the delays caused by devious dogs bad actors and remember how a team came together to pull off one of the biggest mints in Solana history.


Madlist claims went live on February 28th

Fans of the Mad Lads battled to get Madlisted (read: whitelisted) for months leading up to the claim announcement.

Image

The claim process was supremely smooth and hype around the project reached a new pinnacle.

All was going according to plan… so far.

A Madlist NFT, source: Based Charker

Mint details were announced on April 11th

Some funny business was foreshadowed when the Mad Lads announced that they were minting a rug on 4/20 for 6.9 SOL. To date it remains one of the most popular posts that the team has ever released.

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At the time, nobody could have guessed the scope of the skullduggery that would take place on mint day.


Madlist and Public mint info was released on April 18th

Mint times were released along with a sneak peak at what would end up becoming a powerhouse trait of the collection.

  • Madlist mint: 7PM EST on 4/19

  • Public mint: 7PM EST on 4/20

Mad Skulls have emerged as the elite of the elite.

Madlist mint goes live on April 19th

The day finally arrives for the Madlist mint and it was deployed without incident.

The next day was not so smooth.

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Jakey streamed his mint and demonstrated just how quick and easy the process was.

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In many ways the Mad Lads mint experience was designed to show off the power of Backpack and xNFTs.

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Thousands of rugs were minted by Madlist holders leaving around 6,000 Rugs for the Public mint.

Seriously, they minted a rug.

Source: Borgy

The public mint was scheduled for the next day, April 20th

Vibes were at an all time high and the Mad Lads have more eyes on them than ever.

Cue the DDOS attack.

DDOS in web3 terms means that the devious dogs bad actors spammed the mint contract with hundreds of thousands of bogus transactions.

It’s important to note that the Backpack team had been receiving threats of attack and attempted extortion leading up to the mint.

Ferrante said he began receiving Telegram messages from an unknown party who attempted to extort Coral, claiming that they could “take down” Coral’s Backpack app and botch the drop.

-Decrypt

This is when the team kicked off a series of delays (three to be exact).

After careful consideration the mint was officially postponed until the next day.

So much for the #420blazeit vibes.

Armani Ferrante was quick to own the situation and acknowledge everything that had occurred over the previous twenty four hours - an eventful day to say the least.

I can’t fully confirm but this may be Armani’s most liked Tweet of all time.

The Mad Lads community had yet to fully form however public sentiment showed (almost) nothing but support for the team.


Attempt #2 is planned for April 21st

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” was the theme on April 21st and the Mad Lads team came out with guns blazing in the next announcement.

It was Day 3 of the mint saga and the stakes were high.

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The Mad Lads team anticipated a renewed attack so they laid a trap.

Two updates were sent to the minting app. One that was legit and one that could only be found if you were a devious dog bad actor poking around in the code.

ph101pp was the developer behind the honeypot.

Needless to say the plan worked and $250K was netted from the bad actor botters.

In true Mad Lad fashion they returned the SOL trapped in the honeypot within 24hrs.

The rest of the mint played out swimmingly and 6000+ NFTs were minted in the public phase.

All told there were 7879 unique holders before the artwork was ever revealed.


The artwork reveal occurred about two hours after the mint closed

The team flexed xNFT capabilities with the artwork reveal using a gamified approach.

Collectively, holders were instructed to attack the Mad King until his XP ran out.

It was a literal video game.

Watch Jakey battle the Mad King and claim his Mad Lads

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Once the Mad King was defeated holders were able to see their artwork for the first time.


History writes itself after the artwork reveal

The Mad Lads collection broke trading volume records on Solana and disrupted the Ethereum market for weeks.

Source: CryptoSlam!

Within 24hrs the Mad Lads flipped all collections on Solana as well as Ethereum.

24H NFT SALES VOLUME IS LARGER THAN THOSE OF THE NEXT 9 COLLECTIONS COMBINED

-DEGEN NEWS

The trend continued over the next week.

This volume was fueled by monumental Skull and Lassie sales.

Source: CryptoSlam!

Skulls and Lassies remain the most highly sought after traits in the collection.

Source: Nansen

The Mad Lads pulled off one of the biggest mints in Solana history

The Mad Lads team pulled themselves through the proverbial fire to ensure that their launch succeeded no matter what challenges they were presented.

This set a precedent and established the foundation for the “fock it” mentality.


Subscribe to the Mad News for more deep dives into Mad Lads history, weekly updates on what the team is building and exclusive interviews with Solana’s most notable builders.

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Mad Mint: How The Mad Lads Broke The Internet

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Ludi
Nov 20

yay fockit!

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