Jack Kubinec

New York

Fake Kentuckian, covering Solana @blockworks_, hosting @lightspeedpodhq, prev @cornell. Tips: jack_kubinec on Telegram, DM for Signal.

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Articles

Solana says zero-knowledge proofs were root of mid-April bug

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

In mid-April, leaders in the Solana world took to X to post the same cryptic hash. Strings like this can conceal a message's contents from the public, while still allowing anyone with the original data to verify its authenticity.
Ellipsis Labs claims credit for mysterious top Solana DEX

1 week ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

Over the past few months, people involved in Solana DeFi have been asking questions about SolFi, a DEX that sprang up in November and almost immediately captured over 20% market share on swaps between stablecoins and SOL. SolFi was able to quote better prices than competitors, but at least one business partner I spoke to didn't know who was behind the new exchange before today. In general, few seemed to be in the loop as to how SolFi was achieving such good prices.
Now dominant in crypto, Solana community gathers in Istanbul

2 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

One of the best parts of traveling is getting to meet new people, unless you're traveling to a crypto conference. Solana Crossroads kicked off today in Istanbul, so a number of Solana builders decamped from New York and San Francisco to sip stale coffee halfway around the world while talking with the same people they see at Solana events in New York and San Francisco.
Solana Foundation begins pruning validators from delegation program

2 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

The Solana Foundation is tightening its leash on the validators receiving its stake. The Solana Foundation now says that for every new validator added to the Solana Foundation Delegation Program, it will remove three long-standing ones with under 1,000 SOL in external stake. The goal: have fewer validators relying on foundation stake and more earning authentic backing from the community.
Small-cap stocks are adding Solana exposure

3 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, . There's a refrain in crypto these days that while many in the industry expected crypto to become more like traditional finance over time, TradFi has actually just become more like crypto. Zeitgeisty stocks can trade more like memecoins than based on any sort of price-to-earnings ratio. Robinhood offers sports betting.
Colosseum's Taylor

3 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

Colosseum is something like a hackathon organizer mixed with Y Combinator for Solana startups. I tend to view its hackathon entries as a proxy for what Solana builders are interested in, and I see its hackathon winners as a potential proxy for what Solana venture investors find valuable. So this week on the Lightspeed podcast, I asked Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor what he's excited about from the organization's newest hackathon, and his answer surprised me.
Movement Labs, Foundation conducts 'investigation' into 'market maker abnormalities'

4 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

Movement Labs and Movement Network are conducting an investigation following last month's market maker issues, when Binance removed an unnamed market maker after "misconduct" around MOVE's token, Blockworks has learned. A Movement Labs spokesperson confirmed a third-party review when reached by Blockworks.
Janover Inc. set to receive some of Kraken's staked SOL

4 weeks ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, . Kraken has signed a non-binding letter of intent to delegate some of its current and future staked Solana tokens to validators operated by Janover Inc., the real estate company turned Solana treasury play told Lightspeed exclusively.
Solana stablecoins have been 'stickier than anticipated'

1 month ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

When Donald Trump paired his Solana memecoin with USDC, the Solana network's stablecoin supply predictably shot upwards - creating 306 days of supply growth over a long weekend, as we put it in this newsletter. Although much of this supply growth stemmed from a memecoin that had about 48 hours of relevance, Solana's stablecoin supply is still near its all-time high. On February 11, Solana had $12.4 billion in stables. Today, it has $12.1 billion.
Loopscale launches for more efficient Solana DeFi

1 month ago | blockworks.co | Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, . More than a half decade into DeFi, the sector is still somewhat of a wild west beset by elevated risk, unpredictable yields and the occasional crisis. Mary Gooneratne, co-founder of Solana DeFi startup Loopscale, wants to give blockchain borrow-lend a facelift. "A lot of those [existing DeFi] architectures were designed kind of as a function of Ethereum's constraints," Gooneratne said in an interview.