📈 State of Solana Q3 2023

Messari has released its latest State of Solana report for Q3 with some big moves and news for Solana. This report has way more than I can cover in just this newsletter, but I’ve included some of the highlights and I highly encourage you to read through the full report (link below).

Overall, Solana has demonstrated resilience and growth potential despite regulatory hurdles and market concerns.

Solana's virtual machine (SVM) and general tech stack gained adoption from external projects, including discussions about a Solana fork for MakerDAO, Visa's integration with Solana, Eclipse SVM, Neon EVM, Solang, Solflare MetaMask Snap, Helium, Hivemapper, and the announcement of Rome Protocol shared sequencer.

Solana saw the development of privacy-enabling protocols like Light Protocol and Elusiv, which focus on zero-knowledge approaches.

Solana Labs and independent organizations like Helius and Ironforge released tools and resources to support ecosystem development and growth, including hackathons, hackathons, accelerators, and educational initiatives.

The v1.16 upgrade reduces validator memory requirements, introduces the capabilities and features needed for Token22 confidential transfers, and improves efficiency for verifying ZK proofs.

Solana has had consistent uptime since Feb 2023 as the result of technical improvements that were rolled out in the past year, such as QUIC, stake-weighted QoS, and local fee markets.

In addition to the Solana Labs and Jito Labs clients, development is progressing on Firedancer by Jump Crypto, Sig (written in Zig), and TinyDancer (Light Client).

These developments indicate the growing maturity of the Solana ecosystem, with progress being made in DeFi, NFTs, gaming, payments, clients, and privacy protocols.

State of Solana Q3 2023

🌌 Explore Hyperdrive Projects

Last week I shared a Twitter roundup of #Hyperdrive projects, but here’s the full, official list for you to check out!

Hyperdrive saw an incredible 900+ project submissions, continuing the crazy growth trend for Solana hackathons.

• Solana Season Hackathon (Jun 2021): 326 projects

• Ignition Hackathon (Oct 2021): 568 Projects

• Riptide Hackathon (Mar 2022): 550 Projects

• Summer Camp Hackathon (Aug 2022): 750 Projects

• Grizzlython Hackathon (Mar 2023): 813 Projects

• Hyperdrive Hackathon (Oct 2023): 907 Projects

Hyperdrive Project Directory

💎 Solana Developer News

Announcing the Encode x Solana Bootcamp
The Encode Solana Bootcamp is an six-week program designed to provide developers with hands-on training in the Solana ecosystem. Running from 20th November to 4th January, participants will engage in a robust learning experience, culminating in a certificate for those with full attendance.

Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol on Devnet
CCTP allows for secure transfers of USDC between different blockchains using a native "burn-and-mint" process. Circle plans to introduce CCTP to mainnet soon allowing developers to move USDC to Solana from Ethereum and other networks without centralized intermediaries.

⚡Quick Hits

SolanaFM opens Early Access signups for FM Quantum - @solanafm

Lido Exits Solana Following Community Vote - The Defiant

Why deBridge chose Helius for their infrastructure - @deBridgeFinance

List of Web3 VC Team’s Twitter accounts - @vinikloppel

Recent Helius Labs API Updates - @nick_pennie

Helium HNT Mobile Wallet v2.3.0 released - @helium

Generating programs and clients from a UI with Soda - @use_soda

Reflecting on Magic Eden’s Growth Journey - Safary

⚙️ Tools & Resources

beam-link is an SDK to connect with Beam Cash for sending USDC as USD to bank accounts.

Solana.Unity.Soar is the Unity SDK for integrating with the SOAR (Solana on-chain Identity, Achievements and Rankings) protocol

Phantom 23.14.1 changelog of new features, improvements, and bug fixes for Phantom wallet.

Code SDK is an early version of the Code payments SDK that makes it simple for developers to accept small payments from users charging as little as 5 cents.

🎙️ Listen to This

Crypto Conversation

This is a great episode if you’ve ever wondered about the history of the Solana Foundation and what it actually does for the ecosystem!

Austin Federa is the Head of Strategy at Solana Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Switzerland that provides grants and supports development on the Solana network. Solana is known for its fast, cheap, and scalable blockchain solution with transactions finalizing in 400 milliseconds and low fees of around $0.00025 per transaction.

The Solana Foundation - Stewarding Solana

Thanks for reading ✌️

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