Lightspeed Newsletter: Building a ‘Solana Economic Zone’ in Argentina

19.07.2024

Today, enjoy the Lightspeed newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Lightspeed newsletter.

Howdy!

Today we’re diving into crypto pop-up villages, which reminded me of one of my favorite unused quotes from reporting a story.

One attendee at a pop-up village I was covering told me that he sees the movement as a crypto-native way of “engineering” a solution to loneliness, since that’s developers’ favored means of problem-solving. Have you been to a crypto pop-up village? Do you agree/disagree? Shoot us an email here. That being said:

Forma bringing Solana’s internet economy to Argentina

Ethereum had Zuzalu, the Vitalik Buterin-led pop-up city and crypto retreat in Montenegro. In under a month, Solana will kick off its own sort-of equivalent when Forma hosts a “Solana Economic Zone” in Buenos Aires.

The month-long “unconference” is meant to be one of several held throughout the developing world. The SEZs will help Solana builders partner with “techno-optimistic countries and jurisdictions” to bring in foreign investment and talent via crypto.

The program is funded by the Solana Foundation and sounds a bit like Superteam but perhaps with a bit more of a focus on government engagement. Forma co-founder Farhaj Mayan said Forma is partly built on the belief that Solana is already an economic zone native to the internet.

“If we were able to bring the purchasing power and the weight of the Solana economy to these countries… it could immediately stimulate the economy within a month,” Mayan told me in an interview.

Mayan co-founded Forma alongside Babak Ahmadzadeh. The pair met up for a beer while in Dubai and realized they had similar ideas surrounding education and the need for alternatives to the traditional university path. They also connected on having immigrated earlier in life — Mayan initially from Dubai to the US and Ahmadzadeh from Iran to the UK, Ahmadzadeh said.

“I guess people like us maybe have certain chips on our shoulders that we want to make sure that other people don’t have to go through [what we went through], and the world should become a fairer place,” Ahmadzadeh said.

Ahmadzadeh joined Mayan’s startup — an a16z-backed company focused on helping individuals build businesses — as an advisor before the duo struck out to found Forma.

Forma chose Argentina as the location for its first Solana Economic Zone because of its already-widespread use of crypto (due to a turbulent local currency) and “progressive” immigration policies that include visas for digital nomads, Ahmadzadeh said.

In Buenos Aires, Forma will take part in the Aleph pop-up city, which is part of the broader “crecimiento,” Spanish for “growth,” movement being led by crypto leaders in Argentina.

“Several government stakeholders” are part of crecimiento, Ahmadzadeh said. Mayan added that Forma plans to work with institutions to figure out easier immigration pathways for crypto talent.

As is often the case with startups, Forma has many ideas for what its future will hold. One is to become a “year-round science fair” where crypto builders live in physical hubs and share ideas for projects. Another is to become like Zug, the Swiss city nicknamed “crypto valley” for its ties to Ethereum and a host of other crypto projects.

When I asked where Forma might expand for future Solana Economic Zones, Mayan replied: “Middle East, APAC, and Africa are very top-of-mind” — a cluster nonspecific enough to house a majority of the world’s population.

In any event, the focus will be on local engagement.

“A lot of the work on the network state and on the network society front is default libertarian, which is good,” Mayan said. “But I’d love to start to see a lot more of these initiatives start to very actively think about working with local counterparts.”

— Jack Kubinec

Zero In

Solana saw over 2.6 million active addresses on Wednesday, which is the second-highest daily total in the network’s history, according to data from Artemis.

It’s an interesting milestone to note, but I’d take heed before extrapolating this figure too greedily: The lion’s share of the addresses activity was wallet-to-wallet transfers.

This feels uncomfortably similar to the market making shenanigans that were responsible for artificially inflating Solana’s stablecoin usage figures earlier this year. The total amount of gas paid to interact with protocols yesterday was not particularly high yesterday either, according to Artemis.

— Jack Kubinec

The Pulse

Sanctum’s CLOUD token has officially launched, but the debut has not been without its problems. Some participants on X claim that the allocation and distribution of the airdrop — which was meant to reward “earnestness” — heavily favored larger investors, leaving smaller and mid-sized wallets with minimal rewards. @sunarprolik commented, “Airdrop stakers got played here. Many staked a lot of $SOL for months and got next to nothing.”

The backlash was evident on social media, as users came to terms with changes in their expected allocations. @Chunkym24357652 questioned, “Why did the newest allocation ‘fix’ reduce my supply by half???” @rekt3877 bluntly stated, “I’ll be very honest, you didn’t do well at all.” @SigmaKaiji added, “Bruh you fucked up the airdrop.”

@my_tokens urged others to, “Claim, sell and unfollow this scam projekt and never invest again.” @Bozo90001 quipped, “Good to know I should’ve just been spamming in discord instead of risking my money in your LSTs.” @ramo2025 remarked, “The team had good intentions. Only good intentions don’t always lead to good decisions.”

Despite the issues, the Sanctum team has been communicative and responsive, hosting an AMA on July 17 to address concerns. Sanctum co-founder @soleconomist shared, “I understand that many people who were using and putting their hard-earned SOL inside [Sanctum] feel very hurt and upset. I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have been quietly bullish with your support.” Users appeared grateful for their communication. The team seemed to acknowledge the strong feedback and has pledged to improve moving forward.

— Jeffrey Albus