Howdy!

I hate golf (where’s the fun in a sport where the harder I try, the worse I play?) but I like playing with new crypto consumer apps, so today’s main item was a real tangled web for me. 

Today, we’ve got that new Solana consumer app, staking rewards, and Moody’s credit data being trialed on Solana:

Solana-based golf rewards app GolfN hits App Store

The Solana-based golfing loyalty app GolfN has gone live on the App Store, Lightspeed has learned exclusively.

The mobile app combines collectibles with digital caddie features and a native GOLF token for an experience that CEO Jared Phillips described to me as “Chase rewards meets Strava meets Pokémon Go.” The app’s self-reported waitlist of over 47,000 golfers will now gain access to the latest shot at crypto consumer rewards. 

Upon downloading GolfN, I was directed to create a free account. I then received three digital golf clubs, which enable rewards, but logging a round with my free account will only earn me non-financialized “tickets.”

To gain access to points, which will soon become convertible to Solana-based GOLF tokens, users have to get a paid GolfN membership that runs between $50 to $1,000 per month. These memberships come with a slew of perks and will also let users accrue points that can become GOLF, which can be redeemed for things like golf gear or traded on the open market. GolfN will also circulate partly via “rentals” of virtual golf club collectibles.

When I asked Phillips how the economics of such a scheme can work, he said he expects golfers to be willing to shell out a monthly fee to be rewarded for the money they put into golf, similarly to how membership-based credit cards work. For GolfN’s golf industry partners, the app can offer more finely-tuned customer data, Phillips said.

As for the users themselves, Phillips estimated GolfN will have a 10:1 ratio of non-crypto to crypto people since the app is built for golfers more than for crypto-natives. Nevertheless, Phillips argued that “not everyone in crypto golfs, but everyone in crypto is golf-adjacent.”

“The average person in crypto is more highly educated than not — usually bachelor’s degree —  generally makes more money, and has more disposable income,” Phillips said, noting that a number of crypto people have “come out of the woodwork” as golfers while he’s been building the app.

Golf and crypto’s demographic overlap has made the sport a target for crypto experimentation in the past, particularly with LinksDAO — a group that raised $10 million in a 2022 NFT sale with the promise of buying a golf course. It actually went on to do so, acquiring Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland in 2023 and gating club membership with the NFTs. LinksDAO has become part owner of a second course in Kansas City.

GolfN boasts a lot of potential demand. But if the app has an Achilles’ heel, it may be its complexity. Even as someone who writes about crypto full-time, my head spun for a few minutes trying to grok the distinctions between GOLF, points, tickets, digital clubs and digital golf balls. We’ll see if the golfers fare better.

— Jack Kubinec

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Staking isn’t quite paying like it used to:

Solana’s nominal staking APY has nearly shrunk to its lowest point ever in the past couple of weeks, according to Blockworks Research data. 

This downturn is partly due to a more muted memecoin market compared to the frenzy earlier this year — and also because Solana’s inflation rate shrinks over time, driving down the “nominal APY” but not the “Real APY.”

— Jack Kubinec

TradFi investors rely on platforms like Bloomberg to access trusted credit ratings. But in tokenized markets, that kind of information is often missing — making it harder to judge how risky a bond is or whether it’s worth buying.

Recently, though, Alphaledger and Moody’s have concluded a proof-of-concept trial that embeds credit ratings for municipal bonds directly into blockchain-based securities.

Using Alphaledger’s Vulcan Forge platform on Solana, Moody’s credit data is fed live onchain, making each tokenized bond context-aware. The ratings are programmatically attached via API, turning static securities into dynamic, verifiable assets with built-in credibility.

In plain terms, this matters because blockchain is an open system. If key financial data like credit ratings aren't built into the assets themselves, investors are flying blind. Embedding that trust directly into the token helps everyone price risk more confidently and transact without needing separate data feeds.

Takeaway: Regulated players are quickly taming the blockchain Wild West. If this scales, your retirement fund, muni investment or robo-advisor could one day settle assets onchain — faster, cheaper, and with Moody’s seal of trust embedded at the smart contract level.

— Jeffrey Albus

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