mert | helius | hSOL Profile picture
ceo @heliuslabs, host @lightspeedpodhq, ex coinbase — angel investor and wartime drummer
Captain Trading™ Profile picture Marc Sachs Profile picture 2 subscribed
Jun 17 4 tweets 1 min read
some upcoming things:

- 2 killer consumer features
- Frankendancer (Solana client w Firedancer networking stack)
- ZK compression (Solana 1,000x cheaper with zk)
- Firedancer (no comment needed)
- Mythril (full node client w lower hardware reqs)
- Sov rollups on Solana oh and ore v2
Jun 9 4 tweets 2 min read
this is arguably the best application of crypto I've seen yet — everyone needs to talk about it more

traditional mapping is a monopoly, expensive, and inefficient

how it works is that Google has cars that drive around and gather data periodically and charge super high fees since this data is very hard to get

with crypto, you can give people all around the world the ability to earn by adding dashcams to their cars and map the world in real-time

the result is that you get:

i) much fresher mapping data (Google Maps might take months to re-map something!!)

ii) much better economics

iii) much better composability and network effects

the end result is a much better real-time world map than any centralized institution can provide

the team behind it is @Hivemapper and they're building on SolanaImage this is so sick — crypto enabling better real world systems Image
Mar 9 5 tweets 1 min read
the situation is escalating fast Image i am confident this will change her mind on crypto
Dec 28, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
hot take

OG ETH crowd (who genuinely care about the future of crypto, not just their own bags or twitter engagement) will actually come around to appreciate SOL

now that tourists & predators have been washed out — only the real ones who want a better future will be left ETH & SOL approach scaling much differently —but I don't see why that has to be a fighting point

the *real* problem is that crypto apps barely have PMF

it doesn't matter who can scale to handle the next billion users...if there's not a billion users who even want to use this
Jun 13, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
There's a lot of noise / negativity out there due to the market - it's easy to ignore some of the positive signs and signals behind the scenes.

Let's take a quick look at some promising SOL charts 📈 Users

Even though the price of SOL (and all crypto assets) have tanked - it's promising this hasn't resulted in a drastic loss of users.

With over a million active wallets - we're much better positioned for the next cycle.
Apr 29, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
There have been some problems with Solana lately.

In actuality, it's almost always the *same* recurring problem.

Here is a short & simple explanation of what's happening (for non-technical people) and what it means for the future 🧵 1. SOL's software makes it easy for bots to spam/flood SOL validators.

2. When validators are spammed, they become overwhelmed and do their job (producing & verifying valid blocks) less effectively.

As a result, they're less likely to include your txns when producing new blocks
Apr 9, 2022 14 tweets 15 min read
The Solana NFT ecosystem has grown by an insane amount in a short amount of time.

As a result, it's hard to keep up.

Here is an overview of the land for analytics, tools & infrastructure for Solana NFTs, whether you're a builder or a trader 🧵 First, the obvious - marketplaces:

- @MagicEden (best marketplace on Sol imo)
- @opensea (dominant ETH marketplace coming over to Sol)
- @SolanartNFT (OG marketplace)
- @fractalwagmi (gaming focused)
- @solportio (community focused by @SolportTom)
- @SolSeaNFT (OG marketplace)
Jan 30, 2022 12 tweets 7 min read
There are a lot of misconceptions about #Solana and its performance / decentralization.

This is made worse by people not knowing where to check for stats regarding the network.

Here are some sites you can check out to view some data & insights about SOL 🧵 - Solana Explorer (explorer.solana.com)

Probably the most well known explorer for Solana, you can check out the current TPS of the network, the live transaction count, the current block height and more.
Dec 30, 2021 13 tweets 7 min read
When I first started analyzing #Solana NFTs, there weren't a lot of tools available - I had to do a lot of manual work + scripts.

Fortunately, that's starting to change.

Here are 10 tools that I use which will help you make more informed NFT decisions 🧵 1. @solanalysis - one of the first analysis tools on Solana. You can get a quick overlook of the ecosystem in a dashboard view along with total marketcap, 7 day trading volume, floor prices and more.
Dec 12, 2021 15 tweets 5 min read
There has been an *insane* amount of FUD regarding #solana recently.

While it is absolutely fine (and encouraged) to criticize Solana for its various design decisions and tradeoffs - most people have been perpetuating flat out lies.

Let's dispel some myths.🧵 1. Consider this tweet:

Claim: "There is good reason why blockchains before SoL did not take this route" referring to deterministic block creation.

What he doesn't tell you:

- Most PoS chains literally have the same mechanism
Nov 29, 2021 13 tweets 6 min read
The NFT community LOVES to talk floor prices.

But no one really talks about the revenue the projects themselves raise. Both from mint and from trading fees.

Are there any correlations between floor prices, trading volume, and mint revenue?

I analyzed 25+ Solana NFTs 👇 First, if we look at the amount of SOL raised from minting, we this graph.

This graph is interesting as some of the high revenue projects here haven't done great and some of the low revenue ones have done very well.

(This isn't to say a high revenue project won't do well) Image
Nov 10, 2021 21 tweets 15 min read
There's a lot of hype around gaming right now.

@solana with its high TPS / low fees is the perfect 🎮 platform

This has led to a TON of projects in the ecosystem, making it impossible to keep up.

I've compiled a list of the ones with *gameplay footage* to reduce the noise 🧵 1. @AuroryProject - One of the most well known projects in the space and deservedly so.

Aurory is an RPG game where players acquire creatures (Nefties), train them, and duel them against other players (like Pokemon). Also, great team IMO.

Gameplay: Image
Oct 31, 2021 8 tweets 4 min read
#Solana twitter has been talking a lot about how many NFTs a project should mint.

People think projects with a 10K supply are doomed to fail.

Also, what if most of the NFTs are hoarded by a few whales? Does the decentralization of holders matter?

Let's take a look 👇🧵 First, let's look at # of tokens.

Most people in the space think that NFTs with 10k supply are bad and that lower supplies are better.

Well - as you can see from this graph, there is absolutely no evidence to back up those claims!

...or is there?
Oct 25, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
You often hear:

"NFTs are in a bear market right now because the price of #Solana is going up"

But is this actually true? Are the prices of NFTs actually inversely related with the price of SOL? Or is this just cope / copium?

I did a *VERY* rough analysis to find out👇 How?

1) I tracked the avg sale price of 6 random NFT collections everyday for the last month
2) Calculated the % change in their avg prices day-to-day
3) Took the avg of the % changes and aggregated into 1 data set
4) Plotted it against the % change in the price of SOL

Graph 👇
Oct 13, 2021 14 tweets 11 min read
With the #Solana NFT market getting crowded lately, I decided to go over 120+ upcoming NFT projects in the space and analyze ALL of their roadmaps.

Most of the roadmaps are very similar - but some are quite unique.

Here are some themes and insights from my research 🧵 Image Theme #1: Deflation/Burning

With the hype and success of @DeGodsNFT, it seems some projects were taking notes. Almost 5% of the roadmaps that I looked at mention burning their NFTs to reduce supply!

Have @DeGodsNFT started something here?

Exciting times.
Oct 8, 2021 12 tweets 5 min read
There are many great #Solana NFT drops today, including @Danuki_Dojo and @DeGodsNFT 🚀

Unfortunately, there will likely be some scam drops and rugs happening today as well.

Here are some tips to make sure you don't get scammed when dealing with NFTs today. Thread 🧵. 1. Burner wallets!

If you see a mysterious dark alley IRL, do you walk into it with your life savings with pockets full of cash? No. (right?!)

Similarly, don't walk into mysterious digital alleys / projects with all of your crypto life savings.

Use a burner wallet!

Oct 5, 2021 8 tweets 5 min read
One of the scary things about the #Solana NFT space is you never *really* know who's behind the projects

Will they rug? Can they deliver on the "roadmap"? gmi?

Well - what if I there was a project with an all-star team and an already proven concept?

Enter @photofinishgame 🧵 Image What is it?

A digital horse-racing game which lets players buy, sell, breed, train, and race horses against each other.

All while earning real money.

Think @zed_run, but no gas fees. Built on #Solana.

(Image from the team's previous game) Image