What Is Solana? A Guide to Solana's Ecosystem

Amid the rise of "memecoins" and Solana in 2021, Samoyedcoin (SAMO) was born to promote, educate and support the Solana ecosystem. Seeing the potential of online communities, the advantages of Solana, and the influence dog coins have in onboarding new market participants, marketing their underlying blockchain, and infiltrating modern-day culture, SAMO pivoted from a “memecoin” to an experimental Web 3.0 community coin. We take inspiration from all those building in the Solana ecosystem, especially Solana's Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.

SAMO is an emerging digital asset that backs a community concentrated on onboarding Solana users, educating market participants, making personal connections, and helping each other navigate life. While we’re the fastest, most efficient, and most eco-friendly dog money in all of crypto, we aspire to be MORE than that; we aspire to be Solana’s Ambassador.

Our Vision: Accelerate the adoption, development, and growth of the Solana ecosystem. 

Our Mission: Establish Samoyedcoin as Solana’s ambassador by pushing the limits of what’s possible for a Web 3.0 community. 

Our Strategy: Provide market participants with the knowledge, resources, and community to better navigate Solana, crypto, and life.    


 $SAMO is available for purchase on several centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges, including [OKX](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okx/), [Gemini](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gemini/), [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/), [Gate.io](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gate-io/), [Orca](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/orca/), [Raydium](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/Raydium/), and more.

Our SAMO NFTs collection of 5,525 randomly generated custom designs Samos were released on January 31, 2022. The entire collection sold out in 7 minutes at a mint price of 1 SOL each. Each NFT features a charming Samoyed dog with a blend of unique attributes with as much personality as our fluffy white companions. Each NFT represents a commitment to onboarding & educating the next wave of Solana users, as well supporting those building on the Solana blockchain. SAMO NFTs can be purchased on Magic Eden, Tensor, and OpenSea.

Samoyedcoin

SolFlare

Backpack

Phantom

Solana

dogwifhat

Jupiter

Bonk

BOOK OF MEME

Helium IOT

Mango

Silly Dragon

catwifhat

Artrade

Staika

Only1

Synesis One

Aurory

Green Satoshi Token (SOL)

Family

Wall Street Bets Solana

Loopy

HAMI

1INTRO

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain for the Serum decentralized exchange (DEX). Unlike any other AMMs, Raydium provides on-chain liquidity to a central limit orderbook meaning that funds deposited into Raydium are converted into limit orders which sit on Serum’s orderbooks. This gives Raydium LPs access to all of Serum’s order flow as well as their existing liquidity.
RAY is the native utility token used for:

Staking to earn protocol fees

Staking to receive IDO allocations

Governance votes on protocol decisions

Raydium

Dogelon Mars is a dog-themed meme coin on Ethereum and Polygon. It follows the example of other successful dog coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Floki Inu.

Dogelon Mars plays on several popular themes in the meme coin space. Its name is a mixture of Dogecoin and Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is an outspoken supporter of Doge. It alludes to Mars, a spin on the famous moon meme, implying that Dogelon will experience a massive upward movement. Beyond its tongue-in-cheek name, Dogelon Mars has managed to build a significant community, with more than 300,000 Twitter followers and more than 84,000 followers on Telegram.

Dogelon Mars

Floki (FLOKI) is the people's cryptocurrency and the utility token of the Floki Ecosystem. It is a cryptocurrency birthed by fans and members of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) community and is inspired by (and named after) Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu.

Musk is a prominent fan of Dogecoin, although he publicly denied owning any SHIB. Floki Inu is working on “four flagship utility projects:”

An NFT gaming metaverse called Valhalla

A suite of decentralized finance products launched under the "FlokiFi" umbrella.

An NFT and merchandise marketplace called FlokiPlaces

A content and education platform called University of Floki

The community calls itself the “Floki Vikings” in honor of Floki (Musk’s dog) that was named after a Viking character. Floki vows to take its community efforts seriously and has been listed several times in the Top 10 of LunarCrush’s social engagement leaderboards. Floki has also partnered with leading crypto projects that include Chainlink, Trader Joe, ApeSwap for its FlokiFi Locker digital asset locker protocol.

Floki is also sometimes referred to by some as "Floki Inu".

FLOKI

Flow

According to the one-pager, BONK is the first dog-themed coin on Solana "for the people, by the people" with 50% of the total supply of the cryptocurrency airdropped to the Solana community. BONK is similar to Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) memecoins, it was launched on December 25, 2022, and led to an increase in the price of the SOL token (a rise of 34% in 48 hours). Trading began on December 30, 2022, arousing genuine interest from the crypto community.

The main goal of the team is to bring back liquidity to Solana-based decentralized exchanges (DEXs). The idea of the developers was to create a full-fledged community coin that will be used across all the dApps built on Solana, and each user will have the opportunity to become part of the ecosystem, "where everyone gets a fair shot".

BONK was airdropped randomly to Solana NFT collectors, developers, and artists, other airdrop details remain unknown. Currently, the project has a small digital footprint on the Internet, except for an active twitter account.

BabyDoge is the leading community meme coin on the BNB chain. Baby Doge was created initially as a joke with a mission to help spread awareness of animal adoption. Tweeted by Elon Musk BabyDoge was propelled into pop culture as an adorable icon

The primary utility for Baby Doge is building a fun meme community to spread awareness of animal welfare and pet adoption. The BabyDoge ai image generator empowers the BabyDoge community to create ai babydoge characters ai memes, and ai images on demand without any design experience. Additionally users can pay in babydoge to mint their images into NFTs.

BabyDoge is the only meme with an official world record for helping save dogs donating over 81,000 pounds of dog food.

BabyDoge has its own Swap BabyDogeSwap.com where it has its own AMM, core farms, farming as a service, free token locker, burn portal, card, Ai image generator, NFTs and more!

Baby Doge Coin

Ethereum-based DYDX ($ethDYDX) is a governance token that allows the dYdX community to truly govern the dYdX Layer 2 Protocol built on Ethereum ("dYdX v3"). ethDYDX is currently undergoing a migration from Ethereum to the dYdX Chain. More information is available here. If you want to migrate ethDYDX to dYdX Chain DYDX, to enable staking, security and governance of the dYdX Chain you can follow the how-to-bridge guide here.

If you want to read about the new token utility for dYdX Chain DYDX you can read the blog here

ethDYDX (dYdX) is the governance token for the layer 2 protocol built on Ethereum. By enabling shared control of dYdX v3, ethDYDX allows traders, liquidity providers, and partners of dYdX to work collectively towards an enhanced dYdX v3.

Built on StarkWare’s StarkEx scalability engine, layer 2 is used for trading of cross-margined perpetuals on the platform. The scaling solution allows dYdX to increase transaction speed, eliminate gas costs, reduce trading fees and lower​​ minimum trade sizes on the protocol.

A total of 1,000,000,000 ethDYDX have been minted, and started to become accessible over five (5) years, on August 3rd, 2021, at 15:00:00 UTC.

dYdX (ethDYDX)

Serum is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and ecosystem that brings unprecedented speed and low transaction costs to decentralized finance (DeFi). (DeFi).

Serum is the only high-performant DEX designed around a fully on-chain central limit order book and matching engine. Ecosystem partners can compose with Serum’s on-chain orderbook to share liquidity and power their trading features for institutional and retail users.

In light of the popularity of DeFi and the growth of DEXes on Ethereum, users and developers are limited by high gas costs and slow transactions. Serum aims to resolve these traditional problems of DeFi, as well as issues of centralization, low capital efficiency, and liquidity segmentation.

The SRM utility and governance token enables users to receive discounts on protocol fees and voting rights; 100% of exchange fees flow back to SRM via buy-and-burn, staking rewards, and ecosystem grants.

Serum

Helium (HNT) is a decentralized blockchain-powered network for Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Launched in July 2019, the Helium mainnet allows low-powered wireless devices to communicate with each other and send data across its network of nodes.

Nodes come in the form of so-called Hotspots, which are a combination of a wireless gateway and a blockchain mining device. Users who operate nodes thus mine and earn rewards in Helium’s native cryptocurrency token, HNT.

Helium’s goal is to prepare IoT communication for the future, identifying inadequacies in current infrastructure from its birth in 2013.

Helium

Mina Protocol is a minimal “succinct blockchain” built to curtail computational requirements in order to run DApps more efficiently. Mina has been described as the world’s lightest blockchain since its size is designed to remain constant despite growth in usage. Furthermore, it remains balanced in terms of security and decentralization. The project was rebranded from Coda Protocol to Mina in October 2020.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Mina Protocol.

The Mina network has a size of only 22 KB, which is miniscule when compared to Bitcoin’s 300 GB blockchain.

Mina

Gala is a web3 ecosystem powered by a layer-1 blockchain (GalaChain) built to power the Gala entertainment ecosystem that originally included Gala Games, Gala Music and Gala Film. More recently however, GalaChain has opened its doors to external developers and projects from any applicable industry, providing open source developer resources to simplify the process.

On a mission to empower users and creators across multiple industries throughout the world, Gala’s goal is to become the first billion user blockchain in the world. Innovators can extend the benefits of web3 to their users and communities more easily than ever before by leveraging open source tools like the GalaChain SDK and Creator Portal.

By elevating their ideas to web3 through GalaChain, developers can create custom tokens, smart contracts, reward opportunities and node networks for their communities and projects. Assets built on GalaChain can also be bridged to other blockchains, such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and more. Developers who wish to learn more about getting involved with GalaChain are welcome to reach out via GalaChain.com.

The core of GalaChain is powered by its DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) of Founder’s Nodes, whose operators earn daily $GALA rewards for actively providing resources to the ecosystem and enjoy governance voting rights on certain core Gala decisions. In addition to the Founder’s Node network’s foundational workload, individual projects can also create Node networks on GalaChain with more specific workloads.

Gala.com
News.Gala.com
Games.Gala.com
Music.Gala.com
Film.Gala.com

Gala

Immutable positions itself as the first layer-two scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum. According to Immutable, its blockchain does away with Ethereum’s limitations like low scalability, a poor user experience, illiquidity, and a slow developer experience. Instead, users benefit from instant trading and massive scalability while enjoying zero gas fees for minting and trading NFTs without compromising user or asset security.

Thanks to this technology, users will be able to create and distribute assets like ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens on a massive scale. Chris Clay, the game Director of Gods Unchained, a project already building on Immutable, stated that Immutable allows Gods Unchained to implement a new meta-system that was previously impossible. In this fashion, Immutable aims to create a world-class experience for users and developers alike.

Immutable

NEAR Protocol is a layer-one blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform and that eliminates some of the limitations that have been bogging competing blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, low throughput and poor interoperability. This provides the ideal environment for DApps and creates a developer and user-friendly platform. For instance, NEAR uses human-readable account names, unlike the cryptographic wallet addresses common to Ethereum. NEAR also introduces unique solutions to scaling problems and has its own consensus mechanism called “Doomslug.”

NEAR Protocol is being built by the NEAR Collective, its community that is updating the initial code and releasing updates to the ecosystem. Its declared goal is to build a platform that is “secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people.”

Flux, a protocol that allows developers to create markets based on assets, commodities, real-world events, and Mintbase, an NFT minting platform are examples of projects being built on NEAR Protocol.

NEAR Protocol

The Graph is an indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS, powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem. Anyone can build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL to retrieve blockchain data. There is a hosted service in production that makes it easy for developers to get started building on The Graph and the decentralized network will be launching later this year. The Graph currently supports indexing data from Ethereum, IPFS and POA, with more networks coming soon.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of The Graph.

To date, over3,000 subgraphs have been deployed by thousands of developers, for DApps like Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Decentraland and many others. The Graph usage has been growing at over 50% MoM and hit over 7 billion queries during the month of September 2020.

The Graph has a global community, including over 200 Indexer Nodes in the testnet and more than 2,000 Curators in the Curator Program as of October 2020. To fund network development, The Graph raised funds from community members, strategic VCs and influential individuals in the blockchain community including Coinbase Ventures, DCG, Framework, ParaFi Capital, CoinFund, DTC, Multicoin, Reciprocal Ventures, SPC, Tally Capital and others. The Graph Foundation also successfully completed a public GRT Sale with participation from 99 countries (not including the U.S.). To date as of November 2020, The Graph has raised ~$25M.

The Graph

Kin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that was created in 2017 by Kik Inc.

Kin was initially launched on the Ethereum blockchain. In 2020, Kin migrated to the Solana blockchain in order to achieve lower transaction fees and greater scalability.

Notably, Kin has zero inflation. The Kin supply is fully distributed and no additional Kin tokens will enter circulation.

In 2020, Kik Inc agreed to a mutual settlement with the United States SEC in which Kin was not required to be registered as a security, making it one of the few cryptocurrencies with such regulatory clarity.

In a nutshell, Cosmos bills itself as a project that solves some of the “hardest problems” facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an antidote to “slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful” proof-of-work protocols, like those used by Bitcoin, by offering an ecosystem of connected blockchains.

The project’s other goals include making blockchain technology less complex and difficult for developers thanks to a modular framework that demystifies decentralized apps. Last but not least, an Interblockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry.

Cosmos’ origins can be dated back to 2014, when Tendermint, a core contributor to the network, was founded. In 2016, a white paper for Cosmos was published — and a token sale was held the following year. ATOM tokens are earned through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm, and they help to keep the Cosmos Hub, the project’s flagship blockchain, secure. This cryptocurrency also has a role in the network’s governance.

Cosmos

The Internet Computer blockchain incorporates a radical rethink of blockchain design, powered by innovations in cryptography. It provides the first “World Computer” blockchain that can be used to build almost any online system or service, including demanding web social media, without need for traditional IT such as cloud computing services. As such it can enable full end-to-end decentralization.

Internet Computer

Moonbeam is an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain on Polkadot. Moonbeam makes it easy to use popular Ethereum developer tools to build or redeploy Solidity projects in a Substrate-based environment.

Moonbeam is much more than just an EVM implementation: it’s a highly specialized parachain that mirrors Ethereum’s Web3 RPC, accounts, keys, subscriptions, logs, and more. The Moonbeam platform extends the base Ethereum feature set with additional features such as on-chain governance, staking, and cross-chain integrations.

Moonbeam’s Ethereum compatibility is unmatched:

Minimal Changes: developers can use existing Solidity smart contracts right away, with no need to rewrite or reconfigure

Use Existing Developer Tools: connect popular tools like MetaMask, Hardhat, Waffle, Remix, and Truffle via a complete set of Web3 RPC endpoints. Use well-known Javascript libraries such as Web3.Js or Ethers.Js.

Unified Accounts, Addresses, and Signatures: use your existing Ethereum H160 accounts & ECDSA signatures to interact with Moonbeam

Tap into the Most Integrations on Polkadot: use existing oracles, bridges, wallets, and other tools that are already building on Moonbeam

Moonbeam provides integration and connectivity between Polkadot Parachains as well as with other chains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin via bridges. Moonbeam was started in 2019 by Derek Yoo of Pure Stake.

Moonbeam

Chia Network (XCH) is a layer 1 blockchain that uses its own custom-designed programming language called Chialisp and a novel consensus mechanism called proof-of-space-and-time (PoST). The combination of these two allows the blockchain to use less energy without compromising network security. In contrast to most other blockchains, Chia Network is a public, for-profit, open source company that aspires to become listed on NYSE or NASDAQ. Its blockchain is aimed at enterprise use, which is why Chia Network plans to have XCH on its balance sheet in case of a listing.

Chia Network’s first proof-of-time function was released in 2019, with the first beta version of its blockchain launching in 2020. Chia Network achieved full functionality, including wallet functionality, transactions and smart contracts, with its mainnet launch in 2021.

Chia

Launched in 2011 by Pixowl, The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world allowing users to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of a game. By combining the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the Sandbox creates a decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.

According to the official whitepaper, the Sandbox platform’s main mission is to introduce blockchain technology in mainstream gaming successfully. The platform focuses on facilitating a creative “play-to-earn” model, which allows users to be both creators and gamers simultaneously. The Sandbox employs the powers of blockchain technology by introducing the SAND utility token, which facilitates transactions on the platform.