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$40M Mango Markets Grant, $100M NFT Perps & More

Also: The benefits of Sealevel and parallel processing.

June 27, 2023

Welcome back!

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

  • Golden Mango: Discussions about Mango Markets’ $40m grant arise.

  • DeFi 2.0: Sujiko, a NFT perp DEX, surpasses $100m in trading volume.

  • NFT Aggregation: Texture, a NFT borrow & lend aggregator, goes live.

In the last couple of weeks, the SEC went out of its way to paint crypto as the bogeyman and scapegoat for anything and everything they could possibly think of.

Seems as if Gary overstepped the mark and the US got a bit spooked by the crypto-friendly stance of other regions — in particular Hong Kong. Even the International Monetary Fund is now readily leaning towards crypto. Consequently, countermeasures are underway 😆

The Zuck vs Musk, the SEC vs the FED — things are heating up 🔥

Let’s get into it!

Click on any underlined heading / hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

The Golden Mango

The topic of my Master's Thesis was open innovation.

Open innovation refers to a collaborative approach in which organisations and companies share and integrate ideas, technologies, and resources with external entities such as customers, suppliers, partners, and even competitors.

As such, open innovation recognises that valuable ideas and solutions can come from a wide range of sources beyond the boundaries of an organisation or company.

In order for open innovation to work, some prerequisites are required:

  • Universities that specialise in cutting-edge fundamental research.

  • Non-profit research institutes that further deepen this fundamental research.

  • For-profit research institutes that leverage this fundamental research for applied sciences.

  • MNEs and SMEs that champion these applied sciences, commercialise them, and turn them into new products and services.

Regions in which open innovation thrives — Silicon Valley (Apple, Alphabet, Meta), Stuttgart, Germany (Daimler, Porsche, Bosch), and Taipei, Taiwan (TSMC, Foxconn, Pegatron) — all of these factors are available in abundance.

That’s the macro view.

But how does this apply to, let's say, the micro view i.e. the Solana ecosystem?

Recently, a heated discussion flared up which was ignited by the ~$40m grant (paid out in tranches and dependent on achieved goals) the Solana Foundation has given to Mango Markets to further enhance the network's reliability, performance, and utility.

Some feel that this was not made transparent enough, others argued that the grant was too generous, and others again started to discuss what the Solana Foundation should and shouldn't fund.

If we bear open innovation in mind, the latter shouldn't be overcomplicated. In order to push the Solana ecosystem forward, we need fundamental research, applied sciences, and commercialisation — which all go hand in hand.

Put simply: If the Solana Foundation wants the network to win, it would need to fund different stakeholders along the entire innovation pipeline, from research to commercialisation.

The easiest way:

  1. Create a grant pool of $xm

  2. Distribute the grant pool among different verticals: fundamental research, applied sciences & commercialisation

  3. Allow teams and individuals to apply for grants on a quarterly basis

  4. Grants should be given out by the Solana Foundation in consultation with a rotating number of ecosystem teams

  5. Also, grants that are given out should be announced clearly by both the Solana Foundation and the receiving teams and individuals

  6. We cook 👨‍🍳

I reckon this would make the grant process more transparent, keep costs in check, align incentives, and boost the entire innovation pipeline.

Open innovation has turned Silicon Valley into a perpetual big tech launchpad, Stuttgart into the automotive capital of the world, and Taipei into the nexus of the digital age.

Just saying … there might be a lesson in here somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Numbers Of The Week

News Bites

DeFi Liquidity: Phoenix, a limit order book DEX built by Ellipsis Labs, is increasingly picking up steam. The platform has already surpassed OpenBook in monthly volume, but still has a long way to go to match both Orca and Lifinity.

DeFi 2.0: In a matter of weeks, Sujiko — a NFT perpetual futures DEX that allows users to trade blue-chip NFTs on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon with as little as $1 — has surpassed $100m traded on devnet.

NFT Marketplaces: Solana’s 24h NFT trading volume was briefly back over 100K SOL, with Tensor still outpacing the incumbent MagicEden.

NFT Aggregation: Texture, a zero-fee NFT borrow & lend aggregator, is now live in public beta — giving users access to the best deals across Sharky, Citrus, Rainfi, and Frakt.

Solana Speed: Duc Quan published a deep dive into Sealevel, one of the key technologies behind Solana's high TPS rate. Sealevel brings parallel processing to the network, allowing for an enhanced network velocity and efficiency.

Caught In 4K

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

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Talk soon!