025: Live ✨from Solana Breakpoint Conference in 🇵🇹 Portugal
The Blockchain baddies have arrived. What's causing an eternal sol summer?
Crypto in the City: Lisboa edition is now loading…
Since starting this column in November 2020, my goal has been to educate, inspire and wax poetic on the state of crypto. A lot has happened since then. Solana has completely taken over the blockchain space and is emerging as a Tier 1 project powering and building web3. From NFTs to autonomous gaming platforms, and other Defi (decentralized finance) projects I will be discovering this week, Solana Labs is cultivating an international community of superusers who are all gathering to discuss the future of web3. It could be arguably one of the most influential gatherings of the web3 world, shaping and defining the next few years.
To be honest, I don’t know much about Solana, and yes, I’m stacking $SOL. This is why I am attending the Breakpoint conference in Lisbon. My intention is to explore what’s driving the hype, learn more about cool projects and document the spirit and personality of the community. The forthcoming posts will be quick and dirty, filled with insights to inspire you to go down your own crypto rabbit hole. The conference agenda includes over 98 sessions focused on people, businesses, and concepts being built on the Sol chain. (ahahah I’m loving the sound of a soul chain line??)
Anyways, VC money is pouring in like water and the dev teams are ready to cook. Last night, I clinked glasses with one of the head developers at a club, so I was told. The energy here is magnetic. Those technologists who know better recognize that Solana will hit new all-time highs as the next wave of users get attracted to its high throughput and low *gas* fees. Not only that, but its dapp ecosystem will continue to grow, attracting institutional capital and smart whales who can appreciate a well-managed team focused on development and adoption rather than just pumping the price of tokens. Stay tuned for more Solana Breakpoint coverage. If you’re also in Lisbon or know any cool shops or galleries I should visit, please leave me a comment.
Why is Solana gaining so much traction?
Most of you should be familiar with Bitcoin’s scalability solution, the lightning network. Where users can essentially send and receive smaller sats without the fees and the time to do so is much faster. This layer two technology is nothing new to Solana who's achieved scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.
While some may attribute this to the drop of Bitcoin this past summer, those who know better recognize that Solana will hit new all-time highs as the next wave of users gets attracted to its high throughput and low fees.
There are several key projects building (and investing) in Solana, including Axie Infinity, an NFT gaming company where gamers can play to earn money and reards in NFTs. Stardust.gg is a competitor and will be speaking at Breakpoint as well.
Solana raised over $300M in VC money this summer. Read more here.
Glossary Terms:
Gas Fees: The money associated with sending and recieving money, messages, NFTs on-chain.
Proof of History (PoH): Solana uses a technology called "PoH" or Proof of History, which allows it to reach high transaction speeds at lower costs.
Dapp: A company or application that is powered and runs on a blockchain. Applications right now in the web2 are powered on the worldwide web network. DApps are new applications where all data is stored on a blockchain like OpenSea or Rarible NFT marketplaces.
Solana Summer - The term used to reflect the price of #SOL summer 2021 which shot up from 20 USD to 200 USD over the course of a few months. Safe to say, they are having a hot girl summer, or hot girl fall summer. View stats here.
How to use a MetaMask Wallet
View my quick IG Reel here.
In partnership with:
Nym: Nym’s mission is to establish privacy as a default for online communications. Only then can people and organizations make meaningful and secure decisions about what, when, and with whom they want to share data. Read the white paper here to learn more about their on-chain security solutions.