Sup, nerds!

Here’s what you’re getting in today’s edition:

• 💅 This is cool: This would've been WAY worse a year ago…

• 🔎 This seems important: Solving Solana's choking problem

• 🤝 Partner: Quality wines, matched to your palate​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Coinbase’s ‘Blockaid’ saved 800,000+ wallets from hacks

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Wallet, dApps.

💅 This is cool:

This Would Have Been WAY Worse a Year Ago…

In one sentence: Coinbase sold $1B worth of bonds to pay off its existing debts, getting better rates than it would have a year ago when their stock was a ¼ of its current price.

We know, we know…

It’s a bold move to talk about something as dry as bond sales in our ‘this is cool’ section.

But it’s not the sale itself that’s cool, but what it indicates that’s getting us excited here!

Cause here’s the thing…

Sure, Coinbase just sold $1B worth of convertible senior notes, aka I-owe-you’s that say:

“Front us $1B, and we’ll pay you interest on that loan. Then in 2030, we’ll either pay you back in cash, stock, or a mix of both (whichever you’d prefer)”

All that to cover the company’s existing debts, which kind of feels like taking out a new credit card to pay off your old one — but it ain’t!

In fact, this is the exciting part — because:

The higher Coinbase’s stock price is at the time of any bond sales → the better interest rates the company can negotiate on the debt.

And just 12 months ago, Coinbase would have been getting a WAY worse deal (remember how scared we all were at the start of 2023?).

$COIN stock is up more than 4X since then, and its ability to take on ‘better’ debt just one year later is a massively positive indicator for the broader crypto market!

We love to see it.

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

Solana Mempools = Corrupt Emergency Room Nurses (It’ll Make Sense When You Read It)

In one sentence: Solana mempools are like ‘transaction waiting rooms,’ where you can pay to jump the queue — and this (unfortunately) is enabling network-slowing bot attacks.

Picture this…

You’re traveling and break your arm (not great), so you go to the emergency room (expensive, yes — but that’s what insurance is for).

You arrive and are quickly told the wait time is ~2hrs (very doable).

• 2hrs pass…and nothing (ok, this is an emergency room after all — they’ll get to you eventually)

• 4hrs pass (“man, they must be slammed” — you make eye contact with the nurse at the front desk — she smiles as if to say “I haven’t forgotten you”)

• 8hrs pass (“how injured do you have to be to see a doctor around here?”)

• 16hrs pass (“Dammit, I’m about to break my other arm just so I can see someone!”)

• 32hrs pass before you realize: the nurse behind the desk is taking bribes from people to jump the line! (Your anger knows no bounds)

That ☝️ right there ☝️ is what’s happening on Solana right now.

Some Solana ‘client’ developers (aka the folks responsible for writing software that lets folks access/transact on the Solana network) have created these things called ‘mempools’ (aka ‘transaction waiting rooms’).

And just like the nurse in the above story, these mempool operators will jump your transaction to the front of the queue if you grease their palms a little.

The problem is: 

These fee-based mempools can be manipulated to enable bot attacks.

Plus, in times of heightened activity on the Solana network, everyday users are having slow and clunky experiences, cause they keep getting pushed to the back of the line.

(Which is an issue given Solana’s whole value pitch is essentially “we operate at the speed of light”)

The solution?

Axe the mempools and return to a ‘first in, best dressed’ model.

Which is exactly what Jito — the biggest mempool operator on Solana — has just done.

But it ain’t a perfect solution…

Here’s where it gets a little wack-a-mole-y

Mempools aren’t a standard feature of Solana. Instead, they’re made and operated by third party developers.

The same way Flappy Bird wasn’t developed by the creators of our iOS/Android operating systems — but instead by a third party developer, called Dong Nguyen.

And when Dong removed support for Flappy Bird, others saw an opportunity and started flooding app stores w Flappy Bird copy cats.

(The same thing might happen with mempools on Solana).

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🔪 Let's dissect this:

Coinbase’s ‘Blockaid’ Saved 800,000+ Wallets From Hacks

In one sentence: Coinbase’s ‘Blockaid’ (a security integration that checks transactions and connections to dApps to make sure they aren't dodgy) has saved users $75M in 5 months.

Big dawgs on campus are making some hefty claims:

Coinbase said they saved users over $75M in the last 5 months with their ‘Blockaid’ wallet integration.

And guess what?? The rumors are true. 

Blockaid is an on-chain security integration that double checks transactions and connections to dApps to make sure they aren't dodgy.

Over the last 5 months, Blockaid has been able to save 800,000+ wallet connections for bad activity just with Coinbase wallets alone.

(They also work with a bunch of other clients inc. MetaMask and OpenSea).

The bigger picture is even more exciting though:

Executives at Coinbase and Blockaid have said working on security measures like this are the pieces that will help onboard a billion people to on-chain activities. 

Think of it like this: If you were afraid to jump from a 100 ft high dive, but we brought the jump down to 10 ft, you’d be more inclined to take the leap, right?

By creating more integrated and sophisticated security measures, we’re getting closer to that 10 ft range.

So more people are willing to jump in. 

Nice!

Jito Bundles [Solana Tutorial]