NFT
Mad Lads is the biggest thing in it NFTs now, as the Solana profile picture (PFP) project won alleged extortion threats and DDOS attacks to release last week – and generated worth more than $15 million of trading volume since.
It is a bright spot for the Solana world after a few tough months. Solana’s token and vibes were shocked by the collapse of the FTX stock exchange and the demise of close ally Sam Bankman Fried in November. And then, in December, the creator of Solana’s prominent NFT projects DeGods and y00ts announced that both would be leaving for other chains, which finally happened in March.
Armani Ferrante, a longtime Solana developer and co-founder and CEO of Mad Lads creator Coraltold Decrypt this week that the chain’s community had “been in this very dark, very crazy place” since the collapse of the FTX, and that it was “having its soul-melting moment” during that period.
Ferrante added that “NFTs are super important to the network,” describing the departure of DeLabs’ DeGods to Ethereum and y00ts to Polygon as creating a divide in the community.
“There was a void,” he explained, “where the heart and soul of NFT space actually needed some sort of new heartbeat.”
In that sense, he attributed some of the buzzy Mad Lads response to coincidental timing, as the project was ready to launch just weeks after those projects effectively departed Solana. But Ferrante also lauded the reputation and community benevolence he and Coral co-founder Tristan Yver had built in the space over the years.
Breed it. Mad Lad #2968 sold for 3420.69 SOL
💵 $74,742.08 USD
Ξ 39.95 ETH MadLadsNFT
🛒 https://t.co/NZ848PIoaz
🧾 https://t.co/IVzY1sCzcN pic.twitter.com/xiCUL03Gko— Mad Lads Sales Bot (@MadLads_Sales) Apr 26, 2023
“I think a lot of people looked at us – and I’m just speculating here – as a credible team that can deliver and that are fundamentally good people who care deeply about the ecosystem,” he said.
Mad Lads also marked the first major drop Backpack, an all-in-one wallet app from Coral built around its Solana xNFT, or “executable NFT”, standard. Essentially, instead of using NFTs as an access pass to token-gated content on other platforms or websites, they can include experiences and exclusive content that can be accessed through Backpack.
The Mad Lads coin was the first major launch for Backpack, announced last June. For Mad Lads, Coral developed an in-app story experience that resembled “a collective boss battle” against the Mad King, almost like a raid in the popular online game World of Warcraft. It was part game, part social quest and all in all a shared experience for NFT for holders.
“You don’t have to worry about creating new websites for your user experience,” Ferrante said of xNFTs. “You just use the NFT, and this is an incredible opportunity for creators to build new stories and create a new meta where the artwork is no longer just an artwork.”
So WTF are xNFTS? pic.twitter.com/LGjvHh2JFx
— Mad Armani 🎒 (@armaniferrante) June 20, 2022
“It’s also a living, breathing piece of computer code that can do anything,” he added.
In addition to standalone games and other types of token-gated experiences for holders, Ferrante also sees opportunities for creators of NFT projects to “gain leverage with marketplaces,” for example by trading potentially valuable screen “real estate” within their apps and collectors pointing to certain trading venues.
Backpack is now available in a public beta on mobile and web, and while xNFTs are currently allowed due to ongoing security audits, Ferrante said, the long-term goal is to open it up to the community for everyone to build on.
“The idea is, once we have confidence in security,” he said, “we’ll take the permission off.”
Ferrante promised a flurry of planned announcements around Backpack, including Mad Lads-related content and experiences. And in the longer term, Coral wants to go broadly multi-chain with it. Currently, Ethereum is supported through the Wormhole cross-chain bridgebut Ferrante wants community developers to help add more protocols, including Bitcoin And Ordinal numbers.
“One of Backpack’s big ambitions is to have every protocol and blockchain within a single user interface,” he said.
According to Ferrante, the rise of Mad Lads within not only the Solana NFT space, but also its dominance at the top of the market-wide sales charts in recent days, signals a rebirth for the Solana community. It undoes the damage of the FTX associations and the stories that grew out of them, along with the impact of DeGods and y00ts, he says.
“It has a super organic NFT community that hasn’t gone anywhere. I think DeGods and y00ts sucked the life out of NFT space, but I think it’s all back now,” Ferrante said. And it’s not going anywhere. It’s honestly more exciting than ever.”
