🍬 Crypto Chaos. Solana Suffers

GM and welcome to SOL Sweet. It's been a crazy week in crypto! Let's get you caught up from a Solana perspective:

• Terra's collapse and what it means for Solana

• Solana Pay can now interact with the off-chain world

• Instagram is bullish on Solana NFTs

• Extra sweets

• Funny tweet of the week

In a longer than usual 3 minutes and 16 seconds ⌚

Terra's collapse and what it means for Solana

I bet there's a good chance you've heard about what's been happening in the world of crypto this week.

The short version is - the 3rd largest stable coin TerraUST crashed along with it's sister token Luna. Some $41B in market cap down to zero. And in just three days.

People are hurting. A sh*tload of money has been lost. Some are even calling it the biggest collapse in crypto history.

So what is the impact for Solana?

As you can see from our price tracker above, SOL has gone down big too.

While it's not fun to see, it does make sense. As markets trend down, investors look to shore up their positions. That means exiting riskier holdings.

It's funny to say that considering any crypto holdings are risky. But the truth is only Bitcoin and Ethereum can realistically argue they've proven their functionality. And both have been hit hard by this crash too.

Unfortunately for Solana, recent performance issues likely don't instill confidence in investors. Price wise, we've been trending downwards for the past 6 months.

The good news is it's not all about price. We continue to see developers pour into the ecosystem. If Solana can fix the issues and continue to attract talent to the space, it will be in a strong position to grow and benefit from the next bull run.

Fundamentally, nothing has changed. 1 SOL is still 1 SOL. It's time to trim the fat and let the builders build.

Unlike Terra, Solana isn't going anywhere!

Solana Pay can now interact with the off-chain world

Last week, Solana Pay dropped the news they can now support transaction requests.

In simple terms, this means off-chain merchants can now interact with the app to accept custom payments.

Before, transactions were one-way and had to be on the blockchain already. (Think of buying an NFT on Magic Eden).

Now you can use it to buy real life things, like a t-shirt, and the transaction is recorded on chain.

No seriously, check out this tweet where they did exactly that:

This offers us a glimpse into the future where web3 is the foundation for everyday transactions.

And is it just me, or did they miss the opportunity to have Sheraz say "been there, got the t-shirt"...

Hey Solana, my DMs are open 😉

Instagram is bullish on Solana NFTs

Facebook/Meta – whatever they’re called, announced NFT’s are coming to Instagram.

Solana is one of four blockchains that will allow IG users to showcase their digital art.

And they kindly won’t charge people for the privilege – because why would they?

We’ve already seen NFT integration with social media. In January, Twitter gave owners a way to prove ownership and use them as their profile pic.

So it’s no surprise to see the image focused Instagram adopt them too.

Like anything on Instagram, NFTs will be a flex. But as @ShaanVP pointed out, this is what the metaverse ultimately represents:

Extra sweets

InvestAnswers, a popular investment YouTube channel, explains why Solana is still the top competitor to Ethereum.

Following on from above, this deep dive looks at whether Solana can become the dominant proof-of-stake blockchain.

Fractal, the gaming NFT marketplace, made it onto the front page of Twitch. Impressive for web3 gaming exposure. Although probably not that hard when the founder also co-founded Twitch.

Magic Eden introduces unlisted bidding. Now you can bid on any NFT in a collection, even if the owner hasn't listed it.

Funny tweet of the week

Almost had me there! Still waiting for the OnlyFans link.

Ok that's all for this week. Hit reply and tell me what you're keeping your eye on. Or if it sucked, tell me why.

And share this with that friend who should be keeping up with Solana. It'll only take about 10 seconds to hit forward, type their name, and send. Thanks!

- Toby (@TenderKiwi)