Solayer's $12m Funding Round, Radar Hackathon Side Tracks, & more

We’ve got an awesome edition of the Solfate Snapshot this week, covering the latest updates from projects and builders throughout the Solana ecosystem! Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen some impressive fundraising rounds being announced, new products from the mtnDAO hackers, and much more!

Here’s the latest from our team at Solfate and the Solana ecosystem:

Solayer Announces $12m Funding Round

The team at Solayer has announced their $12m funding round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Hack VC, Binance Labs, Maelstrom, and more. Solayer aims to build the restaking network on Solana through its integrated design of systems and dapps.

Since their initial launch in May 2024, the team has reached an all-time high of $190M in TVL and launched their mainnet with 4 endo AVSs:

• Restaking vault

• Native staking / unstaking

• MEV-boost

• sSOL unfreeze to kickstart the liquidity interface

• Endo AVS mainnet

In the coming months, the team aims to launch the full system which includes:

• Endogenous AVS client

• General asset restaking

• Exogenous AVS

Check out the full announcement for more info on Solayer here.

New mtnDAO-based Projects: blurt.gg & split.food

For those who have attended the mtnDAO hacker houses, you know that some of the coolest projects and innovations in the Solana ecosystem start at the Utah-based event. During this year’s August event, we’ve seen some long-time mtnDAO attendees push out some new apps utilizing Blinks and Solana Pay.

A new Blinks innovation blurt.gg is a tool that allows users to donate to their favorite live streamers on platforms such as X, Youtube, Twitch, & Kick. Check out the full announcement here for more info on blurt.gg and how you can start using it today!

split.food introduces a new app allowing users to scan receipts to create itemized bills, shareable with friends, and payments enabled by USDC or Venmo. Check out the full demo of the app here.

New Solfate Podcast Episodes

Be sure to check out the latest episodes of the Solfate Podcast, where we had some great recent discussions with builders in the Solana ecosystem. Over the past few weeks, we’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Matty Taylor from Colosseum, and Andrea, the Co-Founder of Magic Block.

• Colosseum: Solana’s Startup Accelerator

• How Ephemeral Rollups Will Change Blockchain Gaming

Solana Zero: ZK Compression Side Track - Radar Hackathon

The Radar Hackathon is just around the corner, starting this Monday! A new side track has been added to the hackathon dedicated to Zk compression, powered by the teams at Helius, Light Protocol, & the Solana Foundation.

Builders utilizing ZK Compression for their Radar submission are open to the $45k side track prize pool, learn more about Solana Zero here.

Polymarket’s New Competition: BET by Drift

The team at Drift Protocol has been expanding its suite of DeFi products, with their new prediction marketplace BET entering the Solana ecosystem. Drift aims to bring a unique experience for users interacting with their platform, offering benefits such as:

• Earned yield on open positions

• Trading with all supported collateral

• Unified liquidity from Drift's pool of deposits

• Incentivized markets via FUEL

Check out the full announcement for more information on BET here.

Magin Eden’s Mint Terminal

Magic Eden introduced a new update to its minting platform, with the launch of Mint Terminal. The Mint Terminal aims to streamline the NFT minting process by aggregating Solana’s most popular minting platforms to offer a one-stop solution for minting.

Check out the Mint Terminal for yourself here.

Coinbase & Robinhood’s Solana Wallet Support

Popular exchanges Coinbase and Robinhood have expanded their wallet support for the Solana ecosystem, allowing their users to self-custody, transfer, and receive SPL tokens. With this added support, CEX users will now be able to explore the true capabilities of Solana’s dapp ecosystem.

That’s all for this edition of the Solfate Snapshot! Be sure to subscribe for all the latest in the Solana ecosystem, keeping you up-to-date with all the latest product launches, stories, fundraises, and more.