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Solana Dev Onboarding, SOL On Telegram & More

We explore how Solana onboards new developers, Telegram's Solana integration, on-chain chess & more.

Welcome back!

This is J264G and in this week's newsletter we’ve got these titbits for you:

  • On-Ramps: How Solana is onboarding new developers.

  • Solana 🤝 Telegram: Hey Wallet in-chat digital asset transfer feature.

  • Mobile Gaming: Solana Chess is now open sourced & ready for mobile.

Speaking of chess, this is me — every, single, time 😂

To recap, here are our most read stories from February:

  • Metaplex introduced on-chain compression to lower the costs for both minting and storing digital assets — allowing for cost-effective use cases with billions of users. More here.

  • Helius to launch an AI programming assistant, further enhancing the developer experience on Solana. More here.

  • Businesses can now offer “Sign in with Solana” to their users, which might reduce the onboarding / login friction. More here.

Now, let’s get into it!

Click on any underlined heading / hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Solana Developer Onboarding

Onboarding developers efficiently and sustainably is essential for the liveliness of an ecosystem.

At the outset, a comprehensive onboarding helps new developers get up to speed quickly and start contributing.

Additionally, the lower the onboarding friction, the more welcome new developers feel. This can help foster a sense of purpose and belonging, which can increase the overall satisfaction and lower the churn / turnover.

Moreover, a well-structured onboarding also provides an opportunity for new developers to get to know other builders, understand processes and methodologies, and learn how to collaborate effectively with other teams.

By providing new developers with training and guidelines for best practices, onboarding can also ensure that everyone is working to consistent standards and adhering to the same processes and procedures.

Basically, onboarding is an investment in the future success of an ecosystem.

And that's exactly why Solana has been building out and supporting multiple onboarding programmes:

Grizzlython: Solana's upcoming online hackathon, Grizzlython, has already attracted over 6,500+ developers, making it the largest event in the blockchain's history.

Nas Academy: This free 6-week programme will help developers kickstart their Solana journey. At the end of the programme, developers also get the chance to pitch their project to the Solana Foundation.

Ackee: 145 developers will be attending Ackee's Winter School of Solana. More than 130 developers had to be turned away, however, all recordings and material will be made public. If you'd like to get a head start, take a look at Ackee’s Solana Handbook.

Communiti: The blockchain educational group, Communiti, is running a free 16-week Solana bootcamp which will also offer hackathons and bounties.

Solana Foundation: The Solana Foundation also realised recordings of workshops they have done, including supplementary documentation and sources.

As you can see, it's clear that Solana is putting a significant emphasis on onboarding new developers and is thus set to reap the benefits of a productive, cohesive, and innovative developer cohort further down the road.

Let's build! 🫡 

Charts Of The Week

News Bites

Crypto Link: TapLink has secured $6 million in seed funding for its platform that enables users to share digital assets such as cryptocurrency and NFTs using only a link.

Solanafying Telegram: Hey Wallet now allows users to send SPL tokens via Telegram chat. Justin Barlow, Investing at Solana Ventures, outlines interesting use cases such as NFT airdrops to a group chat, cross-border payments, and chat-based NFT and token trades.

Payment Speed: Helio, a Web3 payments platform, compared the payment speed of Solana and Polygon. Both are fast, however, Solana seems to be more primed for retail users.

Minty Fresh: Solana Mobile unveiled Minty Fresh, an NFT minting app, that enables users to mint NFTs directly on their Saga mobile phone with just a few taps.

Going Digital: Solana Spaces has announced that they will sunset their stores in New York and Miami as their digital products, such as DRiP, allow them to onboard more users more cost-effectively.

Solana Chess: @vicyyn has open sourced the Solana chess code. Possible next steps include the development of an xNFT, which would allow users to play on-chain chess on mobile phones such as Saga.

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

If you'd like to reach us, respond to this newsletter or reach out to me onTwitter.

Talk to you soon!