codex

Colosseum Codex: State of Solana, Blinks Action Chaining, Spherenet

State of Solana, Blinks Action Chaining, Spherenet, Ackee School of Solana, Shipyard, Supersize Game

Mike Hale

Mike Hale

— 6 min read
Colosseum Codex: State of Solana, Blinks Action Chaining, Spherenet

That's all folks! The Solana 📡 Radar Hackathon has come to an end.

The Colosseum team is organizing all the submissions and preparing to start the judging process, which should take 3-4 weeks.

The total number of submissions and a public directory will be published soon.

Here's the rest of the news...

📜 State of Solana: Breakpoint Edition

At Breakpoint 2024 the Solana Foundation released its first-ever State of the Solana Ecosystem report outlining major milestones and exciting developments.

Some of the highlights include:

Institutional Adoption and Tokenization: Solana is seeing accelerated adoption by institutional players, with new tokenization projects from Franklin Templeton, Securitize (partnering with BlackRock’s BUIDL), and Societe Generale. 

Mobile App Development: 2024 is a breakthrough year for mobile app development on Solana.

Major new mobile apps include:

  • Jupiter: A leading DeFi aggregator expanding to mobile.
  • DRiP: A social app built on Solana.
  • PhotoFinish LIVE: A mobile-based horse racing game.

Solana’s mobile focus is also growing with the release of Solana Mobile’s Seeker phone and Jambo’s JamboPhone. These devices and apps are creating opportunities for developers to build mobile-first experiences.

Cross-Border Payments and Stablecoins: The Solana payments ecosystem continues to expand, with launches such as Sling for cross-border payments, PayFi, and debit cards powered by Solana-based stablecoins.

Decentralized Energy Sector (DePIN): The DePIN sector is still growing on Solana, focusing on solutions for the energy crisis. 

Notable projects like Project Zero (a decentralized renewable energy network) and Powerledger migrating to Solana, highlight the intersection of blockchain and renewable energy. 

Funding and Hackathons: Solana projects raised $173 million in Q3 2024, the highest since Q2 2022, signaling a strong commitment to early-stage development. 

Additionally, participation in developer events like Colosseum’s hackathons has surged, with a 36% increase in registrations for the Radar hackathon compared to Arena. 

With increasing funding, hackathon participation, and new opportunities, Solana continues to give developers a dynamic ecosystem to build the future of Web3.

An email is required for early access to this report.

The State of Solana at Breakpoint

Dialect has rolled out new Blinks capabilities, including Action Chaining, Advanced Input Types, and Multichain Compatibility across major wallets like Phantom, Backpack, Solflare, OKX, ByBit, and more.

Action Chaining is the star feature of this update, letting developers create multi-step processes within a single Blink.

For example, you can now guide users through filling in shipping details, making a purchase, and entering a follow-up email, all in one streamlined flow.

Developers just need to add a next attribute in the links section of the ActionPostResponse. This small change unlocks the power to build complex user experiences across any app or service, such as voting on governance, making purchases, or engaging in DeFi actions anywhere the link is shared.

For more technical details and a step-by-step guide, check out Dialect's documentation.

Action Chaining (& More) Now Available Everywhere

🌐 Spherenet

Sphere has unveiled Spherenet, a permissioned, privacy-focused distributed ledger built using a modified SVM.

It's designed to provide a bridge between traditional finance systems and blockchains for financial institutions that must comply with regulatory frameworks.

By integrating compliance features directly into its architecture, Spherenet allows developers to create DeFi solutions that meet stringent global financial regulations, including KYC and AML requirements.

Another advantage for developers is the ability to build privacy-preserving apps, thanks to Spherenet’s integration of ZK proofs and other cryptographic technologies.

Spherenet also provides integration of fiat funding through stablecoin bridging mechanisms, allowing developers to create solutions that facilitate cross-border payments and settlements, and fiat on/off ramps that work with traditional systems in a compliant way.

For DeFi developers looking to build applications that bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralized systems, Spherenet provides the regulatory compliance, privacy, and stability required to attract institutional users.

An Architectural Overview Of Spherenet

🏫 Ackee School of Solana Season 6

Ackee Blockchain Security has announced the School of Solana Season 6, starting Oct. 16.

This 9-week, fully online and free program, is designed for developers looking to enhance their expertise in blockchain technology, specifically Rust within the Solana ecosystem.

While open to all, this program requires applicants to have a basic understanding of programming.

Season 6 promises an in-depth curriculum covering Solana and blockchain basics and programming with on Solana.

The course modules include:

  • Introduction to Solana and Blockchain
  • Introduction to Rust
  • Solana programming model
  • Best development practices and debugging
  • Front-end for Solana Programs
  • Security
  • Bonus Lectures

The last cohort saw 1800 applicants with 117 earning a certification by Ackee. Early application is encouraged and applications close on Oct. 13.

I was a part of the Ackee Winter School of Solana 2023 cohort and I highly recommend taking part in this program!

Join School of Solana Season 6

⚡ Quick Hits

Guide to Serializing, Deserializing, and sending transactions with Umi - Metaplex

15 projects shipping out of Shipyard - @shipyard_

Comparison of 22 embedded wallet providers on Solana - @AdityaShetts

Introducing Supersize, the first Real-time multiplayer game built entirely on Solana - @magicblock

Feed Protocol Roadmap: Q3 Recap and What’s Coming in Q4 - @feed_protocol

How to Use the Feed Protocol Random Number Generation (RNG) - feed

Key Players of Interest to Research within the Solana Ecosystem - @JayLovesPotato

Solana instructions are now live on CryptoHouse - @ClickHouseDB

⚙️ Tools & Resources

docs-blinks-actions is a comprehensive guide to creating Blinks on Solana, including basic setup, creating a simple Blink, and handling various use cases, with Resources, Starter templates, and Youtube videos for further learning.

zest is a code coverage CLI tool for Solana programs written in Rust, with tests also written in Rust.

photon is the core indexer for ZK Compression on Solana. It offers rapid indexing capabilities, snapshot support, and flexible database options to cater to local and production deployments.

limestone enables the creation short-lived PDA signers used to create accounts which can be "safely" closed since the same account address (PDA signer) cannot be recreated after a time period, measured in terms of slots.

LOOK is a REST API that helps developers reduce the size of their transactions by discovering existing lookup tables that can be used to serialize a versioned transaction.

anchor-devcontainer is a Codespaces template for Solana development using Anchor.

solana-nostd-secp256k1-recover is a more efficient implementation of Secp256k1 Recover for SVM.

💀 RIP

The Tensor Foundation has decided to discontinue the Price Lock feature starting Oct. 9, 2024. The decision was made in consideration of market challenges and difficulty with maintainability of the program.

👩‍🔧 Get Hired

🎧 Listen to This

Unlayered

Chris Osborn from Dialect explores the ambitious Blinks protocol, which integrates crypto actions into existing web2 social media platforms.

Chris dives into possible second order effects of this breakthrough technology and how it might form the backbone of a new SDK primitive, or even how Blinks might become the de facto front page for AI Agents in the future.

How Blinks Will Transform Crypto UI And Help Showcase AI Agents I Chris Osborn (Dialect)

Bonus Episodes

Going All In On Solana | Leah Wald - Lightspeed

Leah Wald joins Lightspeed to discuss what led Cypherpunk Holdings to go all in on Solana, the Solana ETF outlook, investing in the ecosystem, the role of staking, TradFi demand for Solana, and much more.

Neon Deep Dive With Daria - Solana Weekly

Daria from Neon explores how Neon enables Ethereum-native apps to run on Solana through EVM compatibility. Key topics include the ease of deploying apps on Neon, how it differs from Layer 2 solutions, and the impact of Solana’s FireDancer on performance.

Reasoning By Analogy With Kyle Samani - The Gwart Show

Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital, a fund well known for its Solana bags and focus on DePIN, joins The Gwart Show to discuss Solana’s potential to overtake Ethereum, the future of DeFi, token economics, and the emerging DePIN sector.

The Placeholder Playbook w/ Chris Burniske and Joel Monegro - Validated

Chris Burniske and Joel Monegro from Placeholder, a cryptocurrency venture capital firm, discuss the firm's unique approach to investments, how they developed conviction in Solana, and combining venture capital structures with public market practices. They also offer advice for entrepreneurs on fundraising and selecting the right investors.

How Zeta Markets is Transforming Crypto Trading with CEO, Tristan Frizza - The Index

In this episode of the Solana Startup Series, Tristan Frizza, Founder of Zeta Markets, explores the future of crypto trading, his journey from AI to blockchain, participating in Solana’s early hackathons, and the inspiration behind creating Zeta Markets.

Building a Liquid Yield Bearing Token | Carrot - MarginFi

MarginFi has introduced the new MarginFi Podcast Founders Series. In the first episode the founders of Carrot share the challenges they aim to solve, how Carrot simplifies DeFi through a single token solution, and building on the Solana blockchain.

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