Solana Now Compatible With Apple Pay, Solana Pay Plugin For Shopify & More

Welcome back!

This is J264G and this week I’ve got these titbits for you:

• Apple Goes Crypto: SolCard is now compatible with Apple Pay.

• Crypto Commerce: Helio presents a Solana Pay plugin for Shopify. 

• On-Chain Shenanigans: Take a real-time look at sandwich attacks on Solana. 

I’ll just leave this here 👇

Why are more and more people looking into Solana? Well, it's simple really ⬇️ 

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter!

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Hellscape Exit

The frenzy surrounding Roaring Kitty and meme stocks is currently taking a breather. 

But that’s not what I’d like to discuss. 

Our topic today has more to do with centralised wealth and power. 

You see, the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021 has set both Wall Street and regulators back on their heels. These entities see the impact of social media on financial markets and the power of collective retail investing as unethical behaviour that needs to be weeded out.

And with the return of meme stocks, this line of thinking has become increasingly evident.

E*Trade, a trading platform that belongs to Morgan Stanley, is currently considering deplatforming Roaring Kitty. 

When you visit the Morgan Stanley website, you'll quickly come across a mission statement: At Morgan Stanley, clients come first. We help individuals, families, institutions and governments raise, manage and distribute the capital they need to achieve their goals.

Well … I don't see how deplatforming Roaring Kitty pays into the stated mission — but I digress.

Morgan Stanley, as an 88-year-old institution, is not the only entity that wants to put a stop to collective retail investing; the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Massachusetts Securities Division are currently investigating Roaring Kitty's trading activities as well. 

As I keep highlighting in this newsletter, the current economic system is rigged against the disenfranchised and younger generations. 

While the old-timers in the Senate and House are allowed to trade equities based on confidential and insider information, the SEC and other government agencies choose to squander resources by looking into — checks notes — Roaring Kitty instead?

Make it make sense. 

Let's be real for a minute: Elected officials and financial incumbents will keep this system in place to sure up their wealth and power — while we get the short end of the stick. 

In this context, decentralised finance (DeFi) is not a “nice to have” for memecoin degens, but a path out of this hellscape. And with DeFi I explicitly mean on-chain services and protocols — such as Uniswap and Jupiter — not centralised platforms such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Revolut, or Robinhood. 

That's why the SEC's legal action against Uniswap needs to be the hill we're willing to die on. 

We need to win this case. 

Because if we don't, we'll all be treated like Roaring Kitty and can be deplatformed at a moment's notice; arbitrarily and without just cause. 

Stand firm, because this is a battle for the future of our financial freedom — let's get rid of these shackles!

Number Of The Week

News Bites

Crypto Commerce: Helio recently presented a Solana Pay plugin for Shopify. Why is this huge? Because crypto commerce not only improves the payment experience for merchants, but also the user experience for customers.

Apple Goes Crypto: SolCard, the Solana Debit Card, is now compatible with Apple Pay. Currently, the SolCard fees are rather steep — which will hopefully change in the months to come.

On-Chain Shenanigans: Sandwich attacks are a practice in which a malicious actor identifies a large pending transaction and places a buy order just before the victim’s transaction to drive the price up, and then sells immediately after the victim’s transaction at the inflated price. Essentially, this strategy exploits the victim’s trade to generate profit for the attacker, often at the expense of the victim's trading outcome. You can now take a real-time look at sandwiches on Solana here.

Lifetime Bonds: Due to the overwhelming amount of information and stimuli competing for our focus, attention is today's most scarce resource. While attention drives customer acquisition, unique experiences drive customer loyalty. This is where Bond comes into play. The platform enables brands to elevate customer experiences and loyalty by leveraging digital experiences on Solana.

Blockchain Banking: With the help of Solana Permissioned Environments (SPEs) enterprises can deploy a private Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) that is tailored to their specific needs. Just recently a new SPE project was announced: IRON — the world’s first fully licensed on-chain bank.

Tokenized Real Estate: MetaWealth is a RWA platform that offers fractional real estate ownership — powered by tokenization on Solana. Essentially, the platform allows for smaller investments, thus making real estate accessible to a broader range of investors.

Caught In 4K

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

If you'd like to reach me, respond to this newsletter or reach out to me on 𝕏.

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}