Monthly community update | December 2021

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☀️ Happy Solstice! Look back at the year in Solana

🌱 The Solana network is now fully carbon neutral

🏀 Michael Jordan launched NFT platform on Solana

🦑 And the Squid Prize winner is....

🥷 Katana is live on mainnet!

👑 Sacramento Kings ape into Solana

☀️ Happy Solstice! Look back at the year in Solana

The winter solstice is on December 20th — and what better time to look back at Solana's stellar year?

Back in January 2021, when Solana was less than a year old, it had 10 billion total transactions, $100 million total value locked, 360 global validators, and 70 total projects.

By December, those numbers had taken off: 45.5 billion transactions, $11.4 billion TVL, 1,328 global validators, and 5,145 total projects in the ecosystem, plus more than 1 million NFTs minted, 5,985 total public repos, and many more highlights.

Remember how far the community has come — and get hyped — at the Solana blog.

🌱 The Solana network is now fully carbon neutral

Big news, fam! The Solana Foundation announced that it has offset the Solana network's low carbon impact. To complement Solana's low energy impact, the Foundation is funding refrigerant destruction, which Green America lists as one of the highest-impact ways to reduce carbon emissions.

The Solana Foundation will continue to monitor Solana's impact on the environment, and pledges to keep the network carbon neutral in the years to come. Learn more here.

🏀 Michael Jordan launches project on Solana

Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam. Michael Jordan and his son Jeffrey M. Jordan have announced that they are launching HEIR, a platform for empowering athletes, on Solana.

HEIR intends to connect athletes with their biggest fans using their own social token, as well as NFTs. Learn more about it at Decrypt.

🦑 And the Squid Prize winner is....

The Squid Prize is a biannual celebration of people who have made extraordinary contributions to the Solana community. This month, the Solana community spoke up and recognized the contributions of @sainteclectic.

Squid Prize winners are the people who, in their free time, make a positive impact with both new and veteran community members. With their educational threads and involvement across the ecosystem, @sainteclectic has done that and much more.

Go on over to Twitter and wish them congratulations!

🥷 Katana is live on mainnet!

3, 2, 1.... take off. Katana, the winners of the IGNITION hackathon, have already launched on mainnet! Katana is an asset management protocol building investment products across the risk spectrum for Solana. Learn more about their yield generation here.

👑 Sacramento Kings ape into Solana

Speaking of dream teams, NBA superstars the Sacramento Kings have launched an NFT project! Fans who purchased a Laidback Lion became members of "The Jungle" will get access to exclusive, real-world perks — a private pick-up game on the Kings home court, premium tickets, swag, and more.

The first batch dropped on December 23rd. Read more on NBA.com.

☀️ Solana Ecosystem News

Solana Ventures launches a $150 million web3 gaming fund!
DriftProtocol, an on-chain, cross-margined perpetual futures to Solana, is now live on mainnet.
Internet browser Opera announces it'll be integrating Solana.
Liquid Global now supports USDC on Solana deposits and withdrawals.
Mini Royale - Nations, a first person shooter game built on Solana, was played by 2 million users.
m2 labs released a tool that allows you to drag and drop to create an NFT.
Ceramicnetwork, a high-performance protocol for decentralized data applications, added support for Solana.
Twitch co-founder Justin Kan is launching an NFT marketplace on Solana.
Ledger will be integrating Solana directly into Ledger Live.
Solview, a live streaming chart for Solana tokens, launched.
Tap Finance, an automated option strategy vault built on Solana, is live on mainnet.
Rubic, the multi-chain swap protocol, integrates Solana.
Friktion, a DeFi portfolio manager, is now live on Solana mainnet.

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