Colosseum Codex: Confidential Balances, Bonsol Public Beta, MagicBlock Ephemeral VRF

The Breakout Hackathon is about to kick off, and building the right team is critical. 

Colosseum’s team-building tools are designed to help you find a technical cofounder, developer, designer, product manager, community lead, and more.

✅ Some keys to building a team are:

• Complementary Skills: Balance your team with development, product design, and marketing/community expertise.
• Clear Roles & Responsibilities: Define who owns what to keep your workflow efficient.
• Alignment on Vision: Ensure everyone shares enthusiasm and commitment to the project idea.
• Availability: Agree upfront on how much time each member can realistically contribute.

Get started in the Colosseum forums where you can post your project idea, find a cofounder, or look for a team!

🙈 Confidential Balances

Solana has launched Confidential Balances, a token extension that allows users to convert token balances into a confidential state, transfer them privately, and optionally convert them back to public balances.

These features are built on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and homomorphic encryption, for apps that need to preserve the confidentiality of token amounts while maintaining correctness and compliance.

A key aspect of the system is its emphasis on confidentiality rather than anonymity. The model includes support for institutions to meet compliance requirements by allowing designated parties to decrypt data under strict controls.

This makes Confidential Balances as a tool for use cases like encrypted payroll, B2B payments, institutional transfers, and privacy-focused consumer apps.

Current implementation is available for Rust-based backends and Wallets-as-a-Service providers, which handle encryption key management and ZK proof generation on the server side.

Broader adoption is expected once JavaScript-based ZK-proof libraries arrive later in 2025, which will enable self-custody wallets and browser-based applications to support confidential transfers directly.

These new capabilities work within Solana’s existing performance architecture. The use of encrypted transfers does not compromise sub-second finality or low transaction costs.

For developers building regulated financial tools or privacy-enhanced user experiences, Confidential Balances combine privacy, speed, and composability on Solana.

Confidential Balances: Empowering Confidentiality in the Solana Ecosystem

🧾 Bonsol Public Beta

Bonsol is a Solana-native verifiable computation framework that lets developers offload complex computations off-chain while generating ZK proofs that can be verified on-chain.

The framework is powered by the RISC0 toolchain and includes tools for writing and deploying ZK programs, along with access to the first live prover network on Solana.

The public beta invites developers to build, test, and contribute with tools for writing and deploying ZK programs, and the launch of Bonsol Collective, a community of early adopters advancing verifiable compute on Solana.

During the public beta, the focus is on usability and community collaboration. Bonsol invites developers to experiment with integrations across use cases such as DeFi, gaming, and AI.

The beta also launched the Bonsol Collective, a group of builders, researchers, and partners working to advance verifiable computation on Solana. Contributions to the open-source codebase are encouraged, and early adopters are invited to help shape the direction of the ecosystem.

Bonsol Public Beta is Live

🎲 MagicBlock Ephemeral VRF

MagicBlock has released the Ephemeral VRF, a Solana plugin providing real-time, verifiable randomness. This plugin solves the challenge in blockchain development of generating randomness without relying on slow or centralized services.

The system works by allowing apps to request random numbers, which are generated off-chain by independent oracles and verified using cryptographic proofs. The verified values are then passed back to the application, all without requiring complex integrations or external infrastructure.

Built on Curve25519 with Ristretto group security and aligned with RFC 9381 standards, the VRF ensures each input produces a single, verifiable output that appears random to observers but can’t be manipulated.

The plugin is fully functional on Solana but achieves sub-10ms latency when paired with MagicBlock Ephemeral Rollups.

Use cases include loot drops, randomized NFT traits, lottery systems, random validator selection, and decentralized governance mechanisms.

Full documentation and implementation examples are available on GitHub.

Introducing the Verifiable Randomness Solana Plugin

⭐ Highlights of the Week

M^0 Expands to Solana
M^0 has launched its stablecoin infrastructure on Solana, allowing developers to create branded stablecoins backed by its base asset $M. M^0 will work with platforms like Kast, Squads, Spree Finance, Perena, Kamino, and Raydium to support treasury management, merchant payments, and liquidity. This expansion enables developers to build application-specific stablecoins on Solana.

Pipe Network Snapshots
Pipe Network, a decentralized CDN built for Solana, has reduced validator sync times by up to 30% by delivering high-volume snapshot data more efficiently than traditional endpoints by hosting verified snapshots of the Solana ledger with cryptographic integrity checks via Merkle proofs. The service currently handles over 3 PB of traffic per month and is offered free of charge as a public good.

⚡ Quick Hits

What to Build for the Stablecoin Track of the Breakout Hackathon - @Perena__

From Hackathon Winner to Fully On-Chain Pioneer: How Lewis Built Supersize - MagicBlock

How to Build a Solana Data Dashboard with Dune - Helius

Introducing the first speakers for Accelerate - @solana

How Anchor security checks are handled through constraints - @0xcastle_chain

State of Solana Dashboard - Top Ledger

⚙️ Tools & Resources

solana-pinocchio-starter is a lightweight starter for developing programs with Pinocchio, featuring Mollusk tests, ELF program loading, CU optimization, no std, state handling utilities, and upcoming client generation support.

SolanaUI is a collection of UI components and utility functions that extends the shadcn/ui library with Solana-specific components.

Solana Developer MCP is a remote MCP server to answer Solana development questions inside Cursor, Windsurf, and Cline.

Jupiter DevRel is a GitHub repository with code examples of the Jupiter APIs.

💀 RIP

PsyFi (including PsyLend and Vaults) will shut down all front-end and back-end services and stop platform support on May 1, 2025. The platform has entered a withdrawal-only mode for users to complete the withdrawal of funds before this date.

👩‍🔧 Get Hired

• Helium is hiring a Product Designer – Mobile App to build end-to-end mobile app experiences.
• Jito Labs is hiring a Security Engineer to to ensure the security and integrity of DeFi on Solana.
• Cube is hiring a Technical Administrator to ensure operational integrity, compliance, and security.

📅 Event Calendar

Solana Across America, Multiple Locations, Apr 23
Solana communities nationwide are hosting local events to rally toward Solana Accelerate in NYC (May 19-23). Events are planned for Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Kentucky, LA, Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, West Texas.

Solana Mega Mixer Dubai, Dubai, Apr 29
Join the Solana Foundation, Solstice Labs, and the broader Solana ecosystem for an exclusive evening in Dubai ahead of Token2049, featuring networking, cocktails, bites, and conversations with the teams driving innovation in the space.

🎧 Listen to This

SXSW

This SXSW 2025 fireside chat features Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and seed investor Rodolfo Gonzalez discussing Solana's origins, the role of composability in enabling over 200 billion transactions, and how design decisions enabled it to become blockchain's fastest-growing platform.

The conversation explores how Solana's architecture sets the stage for future Web3 innovation, including use cases that haven’t yet been imagined.

Why Solana Is Fueling the Future of Web3

Bonus Episodes

How This Crypto Wallet hit 15M+ Users and a $3B Valuation in just 3 years - Phantom CEO - When Shift Happens

Phantom co-founder and CEO Brandon Millman shares how focusing on UX helped Phantom become crypto’s most popular wallet, lessons from his time at Twitter, the challenges of building intuitive crypto products, Phantom’s role in Solana’s growth, and why on-chain wallets are poised to replace traditional finance apps.

The State Of Solana With Carlos Gonzalez Campo - Lightspeed

Carlos Gonzalez Campo joins Lightspeed to reflect on the Solana network in March, the state of markets, why Solana is selling off, app vs protocol revenue, REV, stablecoin growth, and more.

SOL long-term chart, Trump's "Liberation Day" & BUIDL Fund on Solana - SOL Brothers

The SOL BROTHERS take a look at the SOL price chart in the long-term, why Gamestop is behaving like Micro Strategy, what BlackRock is doing on Solana, and how to win Colosseum's Breakout hackathon.

Follow @mikehale on X or Warpcast!

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