Colosseum Codex: Steel v2, State of Crypto 2024, Realms Ecosystem
Steel v2, State of Crypto Report, New Realms Ecosystem, Shipyard Workspaces, Tensor Bug Bounty, Ape On Token Locking, Nansen Solana Support
Correction: In last week's issue I accidentally credited "Brandon" Migliaccio as helping to create the Solana Developer Bootcamp 2024 instead of Brianna Migliaccio. My apologies!
⛏️ Steel v2
Steel has announced v2 of the development framework, focusing on simplifying common tasks in Solana development.
Here's a breakdown of the key updates:
- Event Logging: The event! macro now supports simple logging for all events, allowing developers to easily encode and publish event data using `sol_log`.
- Lamport Transfers: Steel v2 introduces helper functions that simplify the process of collecting and sending lamports between accounts, making SOL transfers a one-line operation.
- Closing Accounts: There's now a one-line function to close program-owned accounts and return rent lamports to the user, streamlining account management.
- SPL Token Management: New helper functions have been added to handle basic SPL token operations like minting, transferring, burning, and freezing tokens with ease.
The team behind Steel is inviting developers to contribute to the project by submitting PRs for review.
📰 State of Crypto Report 2024
The recently released State of Crypto 2024 report by a16z crypto offers an in-depth look at the current trends shaping the crypto industry, with a spotlight on the remarkable growth of the Solana ecosystem.
The report highlights how crypto activity and usage have reached unprecedented levels, and Solana has been a significant contributor to this surge.
In September 2024, the number of monthly active crypto addresses hit an all-time high of 220 million.
Notably, Solana accounted for approximately 100 million of these active addresses, underscoring its rapid adoption and usage.
Builder interest in Solana has seen a substantial increase. The share of founders who are building on or interested in Solana grew to 11.2% this year, up from 5.1% last year—the largest increase among all blockchains.
While Ethereum still leads with 20.8% of total builder interest, Solana's growth rate suggests a narrowing gap and highlights the network's appeal to developers seeking high-performance platforms.
Several major themes from the report resonate with the developments within the Solana ecosystem:
Crypto Activity and Adoption: Global crypto usage is at an all-time high, with mobile wallet users reaching 29 million in June 2024. The growth is not confined to traditional markets; countries like Nigeria, India, and Argentina are experiencing significant adoption due to factors like currency devaluation and increasing mobile penetration.
Political Engagement: Crypto has emerged as a key political issue ahead of the U.S. election, with increased interest observed in swing states. Regulatory milestones, such as the approval of Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded products and the passage of the FIT21 Act, indicate growing governmental engagement with the crypto sector.
Stablecoins and Payments: Stablecoins have found a strong product-market fit, facilitating fast, low-cost global transactions. In Q2 2024, stablecoins processed $8.5 trillion in transactions, surpassing traditional payment networks like Visa.
Infrastructure Advancements: Technological improvements have significantly increased blockchain capacity while reducing transaction costs. For Solana, known for its high throughput and low fees, these advancements reinforce its position as an attractive platform for developers.
Growth of DeFi: Decentralized finance continues to expand, offering alternatives to traditional financial systems. With over $169 billion locked in DeFi protocols across blockchains, there's a growing opportunity for developers to innovate in areas like staking, lending, and decentralized exchanges on Solana's network.
Crypto and AI Intersection: The report highlights how blockchain technology can address challenges in artificial intelligence, such as verifying data authenticity, democratizing access to computational resources, and ensuring transparent, user-owned services.
Emergence of New Applications: Enhanced scalability has unlocked a wave of new on-chain applications. The evolution of NFTs from speculative assets to components of social collecting experiences illustrates this shift. Additionally, the rise of decentralized social networks and on-chain games is opening fresh opportunities for engagement.
The State of Crypto 2024 report underscores the potential of Solana. The significant increase in active users and developer interest signals an environment ripe for innovation where developers are uniquely positioned to shape the future of dApps, DeFi, and more.
🗳️ Launching the New Realms Ecosystem
Realms, a hub for DAO governance on Solana, is spinning out of Solana Labs and transitioning to new management under Realms Today Trust.
Realms, originally developed by Solana Labs, is now being managed by a new team, including former Solana Labs engineer Sebastian Bor and other experienced DAO professionals.
The new entity will develop a forked version of the popular SPL-Governance program and continue supporting the DAO needs of major protocols.
This spin-out is designed to provide more tailored and professional services to DAOs in the Solana ecosystem, while maintaining the core governance tools as free public goods.
Some of the key benefits for developers and projects include:
- Customization: Realms will now focus on building multiple front-ends specifically tailored to different use cases.
- Support Services: Realms will offer advisory services to help DAOs set up governance structures, incorporate legal entities, and create bank accounts.
- Sustainable Funding: The creation of the Realms Ecosystem DAO (R.E.D.) will distribute $200,000 in grants to upstart DAOs, encouraging innovation and community-led governance projects.
Several new tools and services are being introduced as part of this new phase including DAO Advisory Services, Credit Card, and Customizable Frontends.
Also announced the Realms Ecosystem DAO (RED, a decentralized grants program that will fund DAOs on Solana, and the Realms Accelerator to support entrepreneurs in leveraging SPL-Governance programs to bring new ideas into the DAO landscape.
These new tools and services will make it easier for developers and projects to adopt decentralized governance while providing them with much-needed support to handle legal, financial, and operational challenges.
Solana's Crypto-Governance Hub Realms Is Under New Management
🚢 Shipyard Workspaces
Shipyard is a global network of Solana ecosystem workspaces, managed by and for the community, initiated by Superteam members.
The first workspace launched in Bengaluru, India, followed by Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Now, the network has expanded to Germany, the UK, and the US, with a new workspace in San Francisco's Financial District.
Superteam UK also announced The Square in London, an experimental tokenized co-working space in collaboration with MetaWealth.
These workspaces offer daily co-working, events, and community-driven initiatives. Future expansions are planned, with more countries in the pipeline.
🐛 Tensor Bug Bounty
Tensor is running a six-week bug bounty program with a $150K USDC prize, encouraging participants to find exploits or bugs in their protocols.
The competition is live on Cantina and runs until November 27th. With Tensor’s protocols processing over $76M in NFT trade volume in the past 90 days, the bug bounty presents an opportunity to secure a major portion of the ecosystem.
🦧 Ape On Token Locking
Ape On is a new token launch platform that offers a secure and efficient way to launch and buy tokens.
Its key feature is a unique token-locking mechanism powered by Jupiter Lock, which ensures that project creators lock their tokens for a designated period, protecting investors from early dumps and promoting long-term trust.
With low fees and fast transactions on Solana, Ape On provides cost-effective token launches, along with a badge system for project transparency and incentives for influencers and creators.
Its mainnet launch on October 20th marks a major step forward in secure token launches for Solana developers and dApp projects.
Ape On Launches Innovative Token Locking for Secure Project Launches on Solana
📊 Nansen Adds Solana Support
Nansen has launched support for Solana, allowing users to research any Solana token or address, track onchain activity, and access Smart Money insights.
With this tool, you can explore detailed token data, monitor profitable addresses, and spot emerging memecoins.
Nansen offers powerful filters to customize real-time onchain signals, track wallet activity, and gain insights into portfolio performance. Users can create alerts for specific addresses or labels and receive updates via Telegram, Discord, or Slack.
Additionally, Solana-specific labels like "Memecoin whale" and "Early buyer" offer deeper context for onchain behavior.
⚡ Quick Hits
Metaplex adds Vanity Mint and Asset Gate Guards to Core - @metaplex
WTF is Metaplex Aura Elastic State? - @blockiosaurus
10 current trends of Radar Hackathon projects - @crabbylions
Rollup and Decoupled SVM: An In-Depth Analysis - Soon
Solana Changelog Oct 16 (Video) - Solana
Insights from the Solana Boston Conference - Marz Rock
Solana Handbook: Learn the fundamentals of Solana - Ackee
How to write a Solana program in C and disassemble it - Sol Play
How to Give THE Killer Pitch or Hackathon Demo - Nader Dabit
List of Solana ecosystem funding programs - @JosipVolarevic2
⚙️ Tools & Resources
sovereign-sdk Solana Adapter is a open-source toolkit for creating both ZK and optimistic rollups on Solana currently under development.
solana-native-starter is a starter project for building Solana programs in native Rust.
👩🔧 Get Hired
- Phantom is hiring a Senior DevOps Engineer to manage CI/CD pipelines and release processes
- Anza is hiring a Software Engineer, Dev Tooling to create solutions for clients and developers.
- Backpack is hiring for several frontend and backend engineer roles.
- Drift is hiring a Junior Software Engineer (React) to help us build tests for a React frontend.
🎧 Listen to This
Web3 with a16z
On this episode, lead data scientist and report author Daren Matsuoka and CTO Eddy Lazzarin take you behind the scenes of the a16z Annual State of Crypto Report and analysis of the latest data and trends that have defined the industry in 2024.
This year's report features some brand new insights, from estimating the number of real crypto users globally, to understanding how much interest in crypto swing states may have ahead of the U.S. election.
They also dig into infrastructure improvements to blockchains and key applications, including stablecoins, AI, and so-called DePIN.
State of Crypto 2024: Builder Energy, U.S. Election, Stablecoins, AI, More
Bonus Episodes
The Next Chapter Of Solana Mobile | Emmett Hollyer - Lightspeed
Emmett Hollyer joins Lightspeed to discuss the next chapter of Solana Mobile ahead of their latest phone release in 2025, why the Solana Saga was successful, how to create a great product, crypto UX, and how crypto can break the mobile duopoly.
Decentralized Cloud Storage on the Solana Network: Introducing Shadow Drive V2 - Solfate
Frank, co-founder of GenesysGo and Shadow Drive, discusses the decentralized storage platform built on the Solana blockchain. Shadow Drive V2 focuses on resource efficiency, decentralizing revenues, and leveraging Solana for identity and payment, aiming to provide a fully decentralized storage solution.
How DePIN Will Help Power Virtual Power Plants & The AI Revolution I Fredrik Ahlgren (Sourceful) - Unlayered
This week, Dave speaks with Fredrik Ahlgren from Sourceful, who are trying to use DePIN tokenomics incentives to create a global green-energy Virtual Power Plant. Fredrik feels that crypto token incentives are exactly what is needed to start onboarding the masses and touches on the future of energy, especially in a post-Superintelligence world.
Jecy From All Domains on The Future of Digital Identity - Solana Weekly
This episode includes an introduction to All Domains and Digital Identity on Solana. The episode also touches on domains' potential in gaming, payments, and social media, with insights into NFTs, meme coins, and personal experiences in the Web3 space.
Solana Economic Zones - Midcurve
In this episode, Farhaj Mayan, co-founder of Forma, discusses Solana Economic Zones and strategies for building thriving communities within the Solana ecosystem. Farhaj also provides practical advice for non-technical founders building on Solana, emphasizing the importance of building in public and the power of writing.
How Web3 is Shaping the Future | Perspective from Solana Foundation VP of Technology Matt Sorg - XFounders
Matt Sorg, VP of Technology at Solana Foundation, shares valuable insights on how strategic partnerships are key to driving success in the Web3 space, the importance of open ecosystems, the role of decentralization across industries, and how emerging technologies enable entrepreneurs and developers to build innovative blockchain-based solutions.
Follow @mikehale on X or Warpcast!
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