Colosseum Codex: Solana Seeker, Encode Rust Bootcamp, WorldID on Solana

📱 Solana Seeker

Solana Mobile has come out of “Chapter 2” stealth to unveil Solana Seeker, the next-gen Web3 smartphone, set for release in 2025.

Following the success of Saga, the Solana Seeker is designed to deliver a developer-friendly platform for the Web3 ecosystem. 

The Solana Seeker comes with several hardware upgrades tailored to the needs of Web3 users and developers. These include a lighter, brighter design, enhanced battery life, and better camera functionality to meet the needs of both developers and Web3 enthusiasts. 

For Solana developers, the Seeker offers the Solana dApp Store 2.0, which improves discoverability and provides a zero-fee platform for app deployment without the restrictive policies found on Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

The Seeker’s Seed Vault Wallet, a native self-custodial crypto wallet, adds another layer of utility for developers. 

With the Seed Vault, developers can integrate crypto transactions and tokenized assets directly into their dApps with greater security and ease. 

Seeker also comes with enhanced access to internal device data like GPS and cellular information for developers building DePIN apps. 

By offering a specialized dApp store, crypto wallet integration, and hardware optimized for dApps, Seeker is creating a platform that pushes the boundaries of what mobile Web3 can offer. 

Solana Seeker

👷‍♀️ Solana Rust Bootcamp

Applications are open for the next round of Encode Club's Solana Rust Bootcamp, a free 6-week intensive online course starting on November 4th.

The bootcamp covers Rust fundamentals, program development, deployment, and testing of on-chain programs.

It’s designed for those with an understanding of programming and an interest in building on Solana.

The curriculum includes weekly workshops, homework, and a final project, requiring commitment and active participation. The program emphasizes hands-on learning and collaboration in a group setting.

The bootcamp includes:

1. Introduction to Solana/Rust
2. Rust/Development tools/Solana Token Program
3. Anchor Framework/DeFi/Security
4. Solana Program Library/NFTs
5. Workshop Week
6. Project Week

Participants will gain advanced Solana skills and the opportunity to work on real-world projects.

I was a part of a previous cohort, and I highly recommend this this for new and intermediate Solana developers.

Encode Club's Solana Rust Bootcamp

🌊 The Graph on Solana

The Graph has released new enhancements to streamline Solana data access and accelerate dApp deployment. 

These upgrades provide Solana developers with simplified tools, such as Substreams-powered subgraphs and foundational modules, to easily index blockchain data. 

The improvements eliminate the need for complex setups or extensive coding knowledge, like Rust, and introduce a high-performance indexing engine that syncs data much faster. 

The developer experience includes ready-to-use subgraphs, code-free development options, and comprehensive documentation to enable efficient and scalable DApp creation on Solana’s high-speed network. 

The enhancements also offer improved scalability, decentralized reliability, and data integrity, helping developers avoid issues like vendor lock-in or service interruptions common in centralized solutions.

These upgrades reflect The Graph’s commitment to supporting Solana and empowering web3 developers with decentralized, reliable infrastructure.

To get started, developers can check out pre-deployed Substreams-powered subgraphs, read the documentation, or join The Graph's Solana channel on Discord for support.

Access Solana Data: Better, Faster, Stronger on The Graph

👁️ World ID On Solana

World ID, a privacy-enabled "human verification" service from Worldcoin, has been integrated with the Solana blockchain via Wormhole, enabling developers to implement secure, real-human verification on Solana.

Wormhole, with support from a Worldcoin Foundation grant, developed the cross-chain bridge that allows World IDs, originally verified on Ethereum, to be used on Solana. 

Wormhole’s infrastructure ensures seamless interoperability between the two blockchains. The integration is not fully live yet, as the smart contracts are currently being audited by Ackee Blockchain Security, with the audit expected to conclude in a few weeks.

Solana developers can incorporate World ID’s biometric-based identity verification into their dApps that prioritize real human users, enhancing trust and security across the ecosystem and combating issues like bot proliferation.

Worldcoin’s World IDs have made their way to Solana

📈 Step v3 API Update

With the V3 update, Step positions itself as the go-to platform for tracking wallet performance and Solana on-chain activity.

The launch of the Step Data API provides Solana developers with direct access to Step’s extensive set of protocol integrations built since 2021. 

The API allows developers to build new apps that offer real-time, scalable data on portfolio and transaction histories across Solana. 

Instead of building custom implementations and manually parsing on-chain data, developers can leverage Step’s infrastructure to integrate real-time financial data into their dApps.

The API is built to handle large-scale data requests, making it perfect for enterprise-level applications, exchanges, and financial services.

By leveraging the Step V3 pre-built API integrations developers can skip the need for building custom solutions for every project, allowing for quicker time-to-market.

Step Finance V3 and API launch

🔭 Fee Tracker Dashboard Updates

Solscan announced updates to its Solana Fee Tracker dashboard, including several new features aimed at providing detailed insights into network performance and fee consumption:

1. Network Fee Tracking: The dashboard now allows users to monitor total daily vote fees, non-vote fees, and Jito tips.
2. Top Programs Consumption: A new section highlights total CUs and fees consumed by Solana programs within the current block, similar to the Priority Fee Tracker, to help users track top-performing programs.
3. Top Spender Consumption: The dashboard introduces a ranking of the top 100 wallets that spend the most on gas fees, along with their priority fee portions over time.

The Fee Tracker is available in beta via Solscan Analytics.

Re-Releasing Solana Fee Tracker Dashboard

⚡ Quick Hits

ZK Compression is now live on Solana Mainnet-Beta - @LightProtocol

Solana Web3.js 2.0: A New Chapter in Solana Development - QuickNode

Kinobi 101: An IDL to generate user interfaces & CLIs for Solana programs - @rexstjohn

Announcing the Step Data API for Wallet Positions, Historical Transactions, and NFT Data on Solana - @StepFinance_

Phantom Rolls Out Custom Usernames, Paving the Way for Easier Web3 Onboarding - SolanaFloor

How to update Solana CLI to use the Agave installer - @nickfrosty

WTF Are SPL 404/Hybrid NFTs? - @smsonx

Solana Changelog Sep 11: Professional Education, Deprecated RPC Methods, Reduced Default CUs - Solana Compass

Deep Dive: Solana DeFi - August 2024 - Syndica

Studio 2.0: A next-gen merch tool for creators, brands, and communities on Solana - @foster_protocol

⚙️ Tools & Resources

helius-smart-transactions-web3js2 provides an example of optimising transaction sending with Helius using web3js 2.0. It provides an alternative to using the Helius SDK, which relies on web3js 1.x

SPL token-2022 v5.0.2 features a new token-group extension to create collections of related tokens through on-chain mapping, and improves performance, with early benchmarks showing a 60% reduction in CUs for some transactions.

solana-nostd-keccak is a more efficient implementation of Keccak256 for the SVM.

manifest is an open source orderbook built on Solana with a layered architecture that offers minimized accts required, ix call data, rent, order sizes, expressible prices to maximize composability & throughput.

Mithril is a full node client built in Golang, designed to operate as a verifying node with lower hardware requirements compared to validators and RPC nodes.

💸 Funding

• Regolith Labs, founded by the team behind ORE, secured a $3 million investment led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Colosseum, Solana Ventures, and other key investors and angels. No ORE tokens were sold as part of the fundraising keeping ORE as a fair-launch token with no pre-mine or insider allocation.
• Helius has secured $21.75 million in a Series B Funding Round to enhance its services for app developers led by Haun Ventures and Founders Fund, with additional backing from VC firms 6MV, Foundation Capital, Chapter One, and Spearhead.
• MagicBlock has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding to scale its Ephemeral Rollups technology, which enables real-time, high-performance onchain games and applications on Solana. This funding, supported by a16z's Crypto Startup Accelerator, will help MagicBlock expand its team and further develop its innovative solution for decentralized gaming and consumer applications.
• Fuse, a key contributor to Project Zero, a DePIN focused on renewable energy, has announced a $12 million investment by Multicoin Capital.

👩‍🔧 Get Hired

• BloXroute Labs is hiring a Technical Product Manager to help lead product vision and strategy.
• Grass needs a Storage Engineer to build, optimize, and scale their storage infrastructure.
• Chorus One is hiring a Platforms Engineer to maintain, scale, and monitor existing infrastructure.

📅 Event Calendar

• Solana House Krakow - VC & Investor Pitch & Demo Day, Kraków, Województwo małopolskie, Oct 6
• Solana Founders Summit, Salt Lake City, UT, Oct 10

🎧 Listen to This

Validated

In this episode of Validated, Austin chats with Brian Long (Triton One) about the significance and functionality of RPC (Remote Procedure Call) services in blockchain.

They look into the complex roles RPCs play in enhancing blockchain usability, data retrieval, and transaction processing.

Brian shares insights from his experience during the early adoption phase of Solana's network and discusses the operational challenges and hardware requirements for RPC nodes.

They also touch on topics such as Solana's state compression, historical state ledger storage, decentralized trading infrastructure, and data accessibility through projects like Old Faithful.

WTF RPC? w/ Brian Long (Triton One)

Bonus Episodes

MetaDAO: Why The World Needs Decision-Making Markets - DeFi Dad

In this episode Proph3t, the anonymous Founder of MetaDAO, discusses MetaDAO and why the world needs decision-making markets. Inspired by American economist Robert Hanson who proposed the idea back in 2000 to "vote on values, but bet on beliefs," MetaDAO is the first project to put this into practice, where anyone can create, manage, and participate in futarchies.

The State of Solana DeFi | MacBrennan, MarginFi - Lightspeed

MacBrennan, Co-founder of MarginFi, joined Lightspeed to discuss the state of Solana DeFi, crypto founder exhaustion, and crypto’s image problem, how MarginFi has navigated 2024, and what he is optimistic about in crypto today.

How Blockchain Tech Advances Benefit Other Industries - Web3 with a16z Crypto

This episode covers everything from AMMs to credible auctions to DAOs, to macroeconomic experiments and FHE to TEEs to zero knowledge and more, and how work in the blockchain/crypto space has led to advances in several important technologies which can be used by industries well beyond crypto.

Follow @mikehale on X or Warpcast!

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