Solana Starter Pack, Circle & USDC Boost Solana Liquidity & More

Welcome back!

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

• Solana Starter Pack: The essential guide for EVM+ connoisseurs. 

• Liquidity Boost: Circle’s CCTP is now available on Solana's devnet.

• Volatility Trading: Jupiter offers better prices than EVM competitors.

The Sleuth meme has been making the rounds. 

There’s a reason for that — Solana’s increasingly capturing mindshare at lightning speeds. 

Consequently, many from the EVM and other ecosystems have been reaching out to learn more about Solana. 

That’s why this week, I’ll present the Solana Starter Pack (SSP) so that you too can kickstart your Solana journey today!

Let’s dive in!

Click on any underlined heading / hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Vibesurrection 

Don't call it a resurrection; call it a vibesurrection.

If you’re new to Solana, it might be a bit challenging to get going, though.

Here’s your Solana Starter Pack (SSP): 

1. Wallets

• Phantom: The most used desktop and mobile wallet — think of it as the MetaMask of Solana, just faster and more delightful to use. Learn more.

• Backpack: The go-to wallet for all Mad Lads holders. Backpack also allows for in wallet apps — called xNFTs — and comes with a myriad of security features such as NFT collection locking. Learn more.

• Salmon: Open-source wallet for the Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR blockchains. However, the team has stepped back from the project, giving anyone in the community the chance to take over or fork the code. Learn more. 

2. Bridges

• Mayan: The bridge uses Solana as its backbone and thus offers the best swap rates. Learn more. 

• Allbridge: The service empowers users to freely move assets between EVM and non-EVM blockchains. Allbridge also boasts a CCTP integration, which we’ll further discuss in the "News Bites" section. Learn more.

• deBridge: The team aims to unite all blockchains securely and bring seamless composability to the blockchain ecosystem. Lighthouse feature: Interoperability and bridging of NFTs. Learn more. 

3. Payments

• TipLink: The service allows users to send crypto to anyone, even if they don't have a wallet. The real flex? TipLink users can buy gift cards with their crypto from 2,500+ retailers in 50+ countries — making all things off-ramping buttery smooth. Learn more. 

• Decaf: Among many things, users can leverage Decaf to convert crypto into local currencies — and vice versa — at MoneyGram locations in more than 175 countries. Learn more. 

• Sling: The service allows users to instantly send money to people in 29 counties and 87 currencies directly via messaging apps. Learn more. 

4. DeFi

• Jupiter: The key liquidity aggregator for Solana, offering the widest range of tokens and best route discovery between any token pair. Learn more. 

• Marinade: The Lido of Solana. At its core, Marinade is a stake automation platform that monitors all Solana validators and delegates to the 100+ best-performing ones. Learn more.

• Fluxbot: A bot that allows users to trade crypto without having to leave the Telegram app — the Unibot of Solana if you will. Exciter feature: Token22 coin trading. Learn more.

5. Miscellaneous

• Reliability: Firedancer is a new validator client for the Solana network developed by Jump Crypto to provide an alternative to the Solana Labs validator client. Put simply, Firedancer aims to significantly improve the security, decentralisation, and performance of the overall Solana network.

• Zero Knowledge: ZK services add another layer of security to blockchain transactions — which is pivotal. If you’re interested in all things zero knowledge, make sure to check out Light and Elusiv.

• OPOS: Sollinked allows users to send emails to contacts that include USDC bounties; when a contact answers the email, he/she receives said bounty. Moreover, the platform also offers a subscription service — make sure to check out Anatoly’s newsletter here!

• NFTs: I’ll be honest — this section can't be objective. But if you'd like to learn more about NFTs on Solana, you can't go wrong with Mad Lads (the best community), Claynosaurz (the next Pixar in the making), and BOOGLE (whales & alpha). If you want to take your NFT trading strategy to the next level, make sure to check out Sharky, Citrus, Texture,and Sujiko as well. 

• Airdrops: DRiP airdrops art, music, videos, comics, and more to subscribers — for free. Millions of collectibles have already been distributed, all powered by a method unique to Solana: state compression. 

• Security: Squads is a Solana-centric multisig protocol that helps crypto firms secure and manage their digital assets fully on-chain and transparently.

Lastly, welcome to Solana — we’re stoked to have you!

Numbers Of The Week

News Bites

Growing Mindshare: Messari has released its newest report: State Of Solana. As discussed above, the report highlights Solana's growing mindshare, mentioning Rune's post to explore a Solana fork for MakerDAO, SVM-powered L2 Eclipse, and Visa's payments integration on Solana. 

Liquidity Boost: The Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) from Circle is now available on Solana's devnet. CCTP enables USDC to flow natively across blockchains — unifying liquidity while simplifying the user experience.

Staking SOL: OKX has now rolled out staking for Solana as well. KPIs: 7.49% APR and $6.70M TVL. As a comparison, Marinade: 8.23% APY and $263.25M TVL.

Fuzzing Solana: Students at the University of Duisburg-Essen have published a paper on fuzzing Solana smart contracts — partially funded by the European Union and German Research Foundation.

Side Events: Breakpoint is just around the corner! During the conference, multiple independent side events are taking place — check them out here or on this map.

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.}