Trade $ARB On Solana, Solana NFT Explosion, Solend v2 & More

Welcome back!

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

• Emancipation: Traditional banking is in a crisis — DeFi’s time to shine.

• $ARB On Solana: Vyper will be launching a forward market for $ARB.

• NFT Explosion: Crossmint makes minting millions of NFTs affordable.

Also, Grizzlython has come to an end and I can't wait for all the amazing projects and teams that’ll come out of the hackathon!

Let’s get into it!

Click on any underlined heading / hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

An Eye-Opening Experience

Many moons ago, I worked in enterprise IT — building virtual desktops for large cooperations.

Basically, a virtual desktop is a Windows desktop consumed through a browser. This allows a user to access an individual Windows desktop from any device that has an internet connection and a browser — even on macOS / iOS.

The most challenging task when setting up these projects was onboarding the legacy i.e. custom applications customers had. In some cases, these have been developed decades ago and functioned as the backbone for e.g. production, ERP, and accounting systems.

The problem with legacy/custom applications is that they don't work like SaaS solutions — they are not cloud-ready, not easily scalable, don't receive regular updates, and are mind-bogglingly difficult to maintain. Regardless, every Fortune 500 company you know uses legacy/custom applications.

Put simply, modern apps will always need to work alongside legacy/custom apps.

We also see this duopoly in the financial system.

On the one side we have traditional finance and on the other decentralised finance. And let's be honest: we need both if we want a functioning society.

However, the issue is that decentralised finance is too closely intertwined with traditional finance.

While legacy/custom apps and SaaS solutions can coexist and not interfere with each other, this is not the case with our current financial system. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Silvergate sent shockwaves through crypto — USDC and DAI depegged, to name but a few repercussions.

Bitcoin, and by a larger extent crypto, was introduced to the world right after the 2008 financial crash to offer a way out of the reserve banking and a debt-based system. Yet, fifteen years later, crypto is impacted by the very financial system it was designed to help us break free from — the irony.

This should serve as an eye-opening experience: decentralised finance needs to reduce its dependency on traditional finance.

We need more direct onboarding rails that surpass legacy rails, and build out services that are critical — gimmicks are nice to have, but they don't truly matter. Secure and efficient financial products and cross-border transactions, and ways to store digital assets in a way that allows for self custody and censorship resistance, that's what’s required.

Now is the time for decentralised finance to emancipate itself for good, to avoid being rattled by the collapse of fully regulated banks ever again.

Grizzlython: A New Standard Has Been Set

News Bites

Happy Birthday: Solana turns 3 years old.

Arbitrum Trading: Vyper is launching an Arbitrum pre-listing market, which will enable users to trade $ARB on-chain to hedge their airdrop before the token is live.

NFT Explosion: A couple of weeks ago, we explored NFT compression on Solana. Now, Crossmint announced Compression APIs which allow for the minting of millions of NFTs in minutes, at a fraction of the usual costs.

Shifting Tides: The Render Network currently runs on Polygon but has received strong support among its users for a Solana migration.

Securing DeFi: The Solend team provided a deep-dive into the protocol's new safety features. The aim is to improve risk management and make lending on Solana more robust.

NFT Lending Aggregation: Speaking of lending, Wolf Capital is building out a gamified NFT lending aggregation platform.

Solana Analytics: Compendex has released its Bloomberg-inspired trading and data terminal for Solana protocols through which users can interact with dApps from a single, combined interface.

Effortless Crypro: Decaf unveiled their Quick Send feature, which allows users to send money and crypto in just a few clicks.

Saga Accessories: The design files for the Saga mobile phone have been made public. This enables accessory builders to create 3rd party hardware for commercial or personal use.

Advertising

Advertise with us to get your brand in front of the who's who of crypto — mainstream and web3 journalists, Solana developers and users, data providers, VCs, and more.

Or, are you hiring? Reach out and let us help you get the word out!

This week's job highlights:

• Junior Credit Analyst at Credix — Fully Remote

• Growth & Operations Lead at Ellipsis — New York

• Growth Manager at Syndica — Fully Remote

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 to you soon!

J264G