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Howdy!

It’s Friday, the Buffalo Bills won on primetime last night, and Dunkin’ is offering any-size refreshers for $2 after 12 pm. 

Things could be worse. Also, Solana Satoshi raised some money:

ORE developer raises $3M in seed funding

Regolith Labs, the software company that spun out of the viral ORE project, has raised $3 million in seed funding, it told Lightspeed exclusively.

Foundation Capital led the round, which also drew participation from Colosseum, Solana Ventures, B+J Studios, Third Kind Ventures and Dead King Ventures. With the fresh funds, the three-person startup will aim to expand its experimental proof-of-work currency while also building a PoW token distribution platform.

Interestingly, Regolith investors did not receive any ORE tokens due to the project’s fair launch, anti-pre mine ethos. Tokens — which crypto venture investors tend to favor for their shorter lockup periods and guarantee of a return regardless of whether a company pulls off an IPO — were not entirely absent from the round however: Investors received equity and warrants for a theoretical future token Regolith Labs could launch, perhaps in connection with its token distribution platform. This platform could use proof-of-work to help token airdrops fend off sybil attacks and spam, something that’s done for Tor’s Onion browser, for instance.

For now though, Regolith is turning its attention to ORE, which is a Solana-based currency that users can “mine” through proof-of-work (though it doesn’t have the security properties of Bitcoin, I should note). The project began as part of a Colosseum hackathon earlier this year, and speculation-driven mining caused congestion on Solana until ORE eventually paused operations for months. 

As a side note, ORE’s origin story has come somewhat full circle: After being crowned grand champion of Colosseum’s first hackathon, Hardhat Chad has become a judge of the second one, and ORE has a “sidetrack” for developers building in its ecosystem. 

The much-hyped ORE v2 went live in early August, but a lack of compelling reasons to hold the token caused some pretty brutal price action: ORE’s price peaked at roughly $1,200 on July 29. Today, it’s trading at around $63. Regolith Labs is looking to reverse those fortunes. 

ORE’s founder Hardhat Chad (anonymous, in a subtle homage to Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto) called the price slide “unfortunate” though “maybe somewhat expected” and said the project is seeking to expand its distribution in the short term by building out a mobile wallet with ORE mining baked directly inside. Today, users who want to mine ORE on their phones, for example, have to do so through the mobile browser on the Backpack wallet app, which leads to a somewhat clunky UX. ORE is hoping to hire more developers, one of whom would be a mobile dev, Hardhat Chad told me.

With ORE’s price sliding so dramatically, more-sophisticated miners are also winding down operations, Hardhat Chad said. At the same time, community-built mining pools have sprung up recently. The pools combine computing power from laptops and phones to mine ORE and pay out reward shares to participants. Hardhat Chad thinks that pools are more sustainable long-term, since fees are divided up, and there’s a lower opportunity cost mining ORE on a laptop than with an ASIC that could be mining other assets. 

I asked Hardhat Chad about ORE’s ability to maintain mindshare when it’s not actively bludgeoning the Solana network. The developer said ORE is shifting its focus to “long-term value” instead of “marketing stunts.”

Part of this looks like deepening ORE’s liquidity in things like stablecoins, tokenized commodities, and DePIN tokens.

“This is how we make ORE ‘money,’ it needs to be readily exchangeable for real world things,” Hardhat Chad said.

— Jack Kubinec

Blockworks and the Solana Foundation are hosting Solana Founders Summit at Permissionless. Join a curated group of ~60 Solana industry leaders and founders for a day of workshops and off-the-record conversations.

Solana had a bearish August overall, but it reached an all-time high in one metric: SOL locked in DeFi:

By Syndica’s count, a group of the largest Solana DeFi protocols locked up 7.6 million SOL tokens in August (this may be lower in dollar terms than in prior months based on SOL’s price action, we should note).

Jupiter perps also narrowed Raydium’s lead in TVL among Solana DeFi protocols in August, as Raydium was perhaps hit harder by the month’s apparent decline in memecoin interest from investors.

— Jack Kubinec

ICYMI this week in Solana news:

• Atlas aims to transform on-chain finance: Jarry Xiao of Ellipsis Labs unveiled Atlas, a blockchain focused on creating sustainable, verifiable finance on Solana. With $50B routed through PhoenixTrade, it’s set to enhance financial tools on the SVM ecosystem.

• Manifest orderbook debuts on Solana mainnet: Manifest, an open-source on-chain orderbook, is now live, offering zero-fee trading and expanded liquidity across Solana markets.

• Claynosaurz teams up with Gameloft for mobile game: The Solana NFT collection Claynosaurz will collaborate with Gameloft to create a mobile game that combines Pokémon Go-style gameplay with choose-your-own-adventure elements.

• Raydium launches 'Burn & Earn' program: Raydium introduced a new feature allowing teams to permanently lock CLMM liquidity while still claiming trading fees, positioning itself as a rival to Meteora’s Dynamic Pools.

• Drift Protocol sees prediction market surge: Drift Protocol’s BET platform saw a 1,287% spike in trading volume during the Trump-Harris debate, with Trump’s election odds dropping from 54.2% to 49.5%.

• Solana reduces its carbon footprint by 69%: The 2024 Energy Impact Report shows that Solana cut its carbon footprint by 69% since December 2023, utilizing on-chain carbon and biodiversity credits along with real-time emissions tracking.

• World ID expands to Solana: Wormhole has integrated World ID into Solana, enabling seamless cross-chain authentication. Platforms like Bloomingbit, DSCVR, and DRiP are leveraging World ID for enhanced user verification.

• Step Finance launches institutional-grade data API: Step Finance introduced a comprehensive data API tailored for institutional players, providing real-time wallet, transaction, and asset data on Solana.

• Solana hits new milestones in DeFi and daily activity: Solana set new records with 33M SOL locked in DeFi and over 5.5M daily active addresses. While the daily address count surpassed all Layer-1 rivals, questions remain about the accuracy of the metric due to bot activity and multiple wallets.

— Jeffrey Albus

Blockworks Research is conducting a survey to gain insight into the institutional staking landscape. This data will help industry leaders adopt their strategies as the industry matures.

If you're an institutional staker, we want to hear from you (and if you’re new to Blockworks Research, get 20% off of our service while you’re at it!)

A message from Rachel Chu, contributor to Solayer: