Solana Greed, Dune vs Flipside, Solana Lite RPC & More

Welcome back!

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

• Solana Greed: More than 40,000 people were duped by $GREED.

• Dune vs Flipside: Solana decoding is live on Dune, rivalling Flipside.

• Lite RPC: A Mango Markets affiliated team released a lite RPC.

Sometimes we lose sight of why we’re here and what our shared goal is.

So, I’ll keep it short and would just like to suggest watching this ⬇️

Let’s get going!

Click on any underlined heading / hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Greed Eats Minds

The core tenent of web3 is self custody.

Self-custody refers to the practice of individuals or entities directly managing and securing their assets without relying on third-party custodians or intermediaries.

In the context of cryptocurrencies, self-custody typically involves having full control over the private keys that provide direct access to digital assets stored in a digital i.e. non-custodial wallet — all without centralised exchanges or custodial services being involved.

However, self-custody requires individuals to be knowledgeable about securing their digital assets, which includes maintaining the integrity of private keys and the safety of the corresponding digital assets.

Having said that, even crypto-native users still fall for schemes, scams, and hacks which lead to wallets drains or loss of funds — just ask BAYC holders.

This brings us to $GREED.

Last week $GREED was announced as the newest meme coin on Solana. In order to receive a $GREED airdrop, one had to tweet greed-related statements which were pretty tongue in cheek.

Then, one had to connect to a website using Twitter credentials. By connecting to the website, write permissions for Twitter were granted to the website owner. However, more than 40,000 people didn't read the fine print or care enough and thus granted the website owner the write permissions for their respective Twitter accounts.

Next, website visitors had to connect their wallet to the website and signed a transaction to receive the airdrop — which 55,000 wallets did.

A couple of hours later, this was tweeted from ~1,600 accounts that granted the website owner write permissions:

Turns out, a well-intentioned actor going by the name “voshy” was behind the $GREED experiment to show that even crypto-native users would blindly grant strangers write permissions for their Twitter accounts and sign in-wallet transactions prompted from unknown websites that could drain their wallets — all for an airdrop.

There’s a German proverb: Gier frisst Hirn. Meaning: Greed eats minds. This seems to have been the case here and what voshy wanted to illustrate.

What does this leave us with?

Well, once again, we come to the realisation that self custody can only be valuable when paired with robust operational security (OpSec). At the very least, we should all use VPNs, burner wallets, hardware wallets, be wary of Twitter and Discord DMs, don't click on links or visit unknown websites, and avoid public Wi-Fi.

At this point, I’m rather unsure how to make this simple concept stick, though.

I reckon every web3/crypto product and service needs to actively force current users in general, and new users in particular, to go through an onboarding process that specifically focuses on OpSec. If users opt out or are not OpSec-certified, it might be worth thinking about increasing the red tape:

• Restricted accounts

• Fewer functions & features

• Decreased leverage

• Spending limits

• No protocol insurance

I'm just spitballing here to be honest, but I reckon it's high time that we start taking OpSec more seriously and actively work on making it more accessible and sticky for users that wish to leverage self custody.

The SEC and other alphabet agencies are already breathing down our neck — let's not give them another talking point and attack vector.

Please, mí familia!

Chart Of The Week

News Bites

Dune vs Flipside: Solana decoding is now live on Dune, a first for a non-EVM chain. With this, Dune joins Flipside and the competition will surely foster further unlocks for Solana builders.

Lite RPC: A lite RPC has been released for Solana. This specialised microservice is designed to simplify transaction submissions, accelerate transaction confirmations, and improve scalability.

Still Winning: Anatoly was interviewed by Scott Melker, The Wolf Of All Streets, and shared his thoughts on why Solana keeps on winning despite the FTX collapse.

Big Apple: Solana Labs announced a new office in Lower Manhattan that boasts a 25,000-square-foot, 4-story community space for ecosystem teams to co-work for free.

Solana Curriculum: Solana Natives have released a draft curriculum — synthesised from 450 dev resources — for their upcoming dApp development workshop.

NFT Evolution: Rogue Sharks, one of the oldest Solana NFT projects, will upgrade their standard NFTs to xNFTs — enabling the team to serve more immersive experiences to their holders.

Caught In 4K

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 on Twitter.

Talk soon!

J264G