SHILL Issue 27

#SHILL 

SOLANA NFT/DEFI/TWITTER COMMUNITY 

ZenFT 

What fuses elements of fantasy 

story-telling? 

GENESYSGO $SHDW 

What IS the GenesysGO project 

about exactly? PART2 

INORGANIC MATERIALS 

Tangible and digital matter. 

PHANTOM WALLET 

What happened to the NFT auction? 

ISSUE #27 

0.025 ◎

errortheory404 

THIS 

In 

ISSUE 

27

4 

From 

the Editor 

FINAL issue for 2021. Wise 

words or ramblings? 

Photography 

Spotlight. Start looking 

6 now or you are NGMI! 

31 

16 ZenFT Generative geometry and 

procedural generation. 

42 

Intrigued? 

44 

45 

INORGANIC MATERIALS 

Project artist and 

24 

creative hans takes us 

into tangible and digital 

58 

matter. 

PHANTOM WALLET 

Launching? Not 

28 

launching? What’s the 

60 

deal? 

72 

PROBABLY NOTHING 

Dropping, holding and 23 hoping 

SHILL the Mint 

Dropping, holding and 

hoping 

SOLANALYSIS 

7D Volume rankings 

MOVERS 

SolsWatch analysis of 

current NFTs on market. 

DID YOU SEE IT? 

New section, where the f* have 

these artists been hiding? 

ALPHA Mints 

Keep an eye out for this artist! 

URS ARTISTS ROYAL GANG 

The one-of-one mints you 

wish you had ALPHA about! 

GENESYSGO 

The $SHDW token and 

where the project is 

heading. Part 2.

the 

from 

EDITOR 

@Pixeltoy 

Issue 27. Nice to see you. 

A big ‘G’Day’ to those who are new to #Shill zine. Hoping that you 

get some real alpha from this zine and perhaps a perspective on the 

ecosystem that you haven’t previously. 

Firstly, props to @norokkun who quickly spotted one of the pieces 

fetured in issue 26 as a rip-off from @thejum569 (an artist on eth). The 

Twitter account of the offender quickly disappeared and the Holaplex 

storefront was taken down 8hrs later. Some unsuspecting buyers were 

obviously stung! 

This is an unfortunate evolution of the sapce. It exists on eth and is so 

hard to spot. By the time you do realise it is too late. Stay vigialnt! 

Another trend that is starting to emerge in the space is the auctioning 

of photography. Pretty soon we will have sales up there with the best of 

them. Keep your eye open for emerging photographers (HINT this issue 

spotlights a couple). 

A cool tip that I thought many were aware about that you may not know 

of...bidding on so many plex auctions can be hard to keep track of. 

You can always use sweeper.immaterial.ink It will scour through plex 

auctions using your wallet address and tell you if anything is outstanding. 

I know Soltoshi, Databstract and others managed to recoup some long 

lost SOL using this website (during a recent Twitter Spaces chat). 

But what about CandyMachine auctions I hear you ask. Well, there’s an 

app for that too. https://www.sol-nft.tools/find-stuck-sol 

4 

SHILL Issue #27

Before I sign off for this issue- I think I have Google Analytics set 

up correctly. Initial stats are telling me that a LOT of iOS device are 

reading this zine. Fantastic! Just be aware that it has been designed 

to view 2 pages at a time. Works perfectly on an iPad or desktop 

computer. On a phone you will only see 1 page at a time. 

Enjoy the issue. Retweet the link to all your friends and enemas! (sic) 

Now go read! There is no COMMNITY without U! 

Pixeltoy 

SHILL Issue #27 5

@Pixeltoy

@Pixeltoy

@wilsenway

@CarrotandBogie

@colorfieldblack

@Pixeltoy 

@CarrotandBogie

ZenFT 

Heads up boys and girls. Sit up straight and pay attention! We have 

a ‘pop-up’ interview this issue with ZenFT. 

Welcome to Shill. Let’s start with a little background about you and 

the team. 

My name is Ali, sometimes I go by Balt. I love strategy games, 

sports, and new challenges. I’m a huge Baltimore Ravens fan, and 

I’m currently based in Chicago studying for an MFA in Game Design. 

The ZenFT team consists of myself, my brother Samer, and my 

16 


sister Maysam. Samer has been the main writer for each ZenFT’s 

description and Maysam has led ZenFT’s graphic design. 

ZenFT is a collection of generative geometric art that sparked a 

world of imagination. While developing the script for ZenFT, each 

iteration caused an explosion of inspiration in my mind. As a lover of 

fantasy worlds in games, I couldn’t help but build a world every time 

I viewed one. Thus, each ZenFT carries a story from the World of Zen 

(working title) that frames an event, a character, and their emotions. 

We did not want to allow this inspiration to be restricted to us alone. 

This led to the inception of the vision of ZenFT; collaboratively 

building a fantasy world. 

ZenFT is a celebration of storytelling, procedural generation, and the 

essence of the blockchain. 

SHILL Is1ue #27 17

Your pieces could easily have been minted on other chains. Why 

Solana? 

Although Solana is a much smaller network compared to Ethereum, 

the efficiency of its protocol makes it the more future-proof 

blockchain in my opinion. Moreso, the cost of entry for an artist into 

Solana marketplaces allows for ALL artists to celebrate and share 

their work with the world. For this reason, even after only a few days 

being part of it, Solana is the right choice for me and ZenFT. 

Your ZenNFT project is intriguing. Tell us a little about the project. 

ZenFT is about celebrating mankind’s imagination sparked by 

procedurally generated art. We don’t only want to make art that 

looks cool and inspires, we want to let that inspiration flow into the 

World of Zen. 

18 


Put simply, ZenFT is about creating together. 

Where do you see the project going? 

Currently, ZenFT is in its early stages; having only had our first listings 

start on the 1st of January. Generation 1 ZenFTs will be coming out 

in waves until ZenFT - 99. The next steps for ZenFT are community 

building and creating a foundation for its future. The vision for 

ZenFT includes on-chain generation and using a DAO to govern the 

development of the World of Zen. 

Community- Discord/Twitter engagement- how is the community 

engaging with the project? 

So far, ZenFT has received a positive response from the Solana 

twitter community. It’s been heart-warming to be embraced by the 

community so quickly and with open arms. I believe that creative 

writing on Solana is an undersized space, and we hope that ZenFT 

can encourage and empower writers to share their imaginations 

through the World of Zen. Currently there is no Discord server for 

ZenFT, however a collectors list is in the works. We aim to build and 

stay in touch with each owner because owning a ZenFT isn’t only 

about holding a piece of art, but also about becoming a part of the 

community. 

Has the team considered working with other artists/projects/ 

collaborations? 

So far, we have not worked with other projects, however ZenFT is 

open to collaborations with other creators on Solana. 

Thanks for spending time with Shill today. Is there anything that we 

may not have touched on that you would like to add? 

I personally want to thank the readers of Shill, Pixeltoy, and everyone 

who has shown support. 

Follow us on Twitter @ZenFT_official to learn more. 

Visit zenft.holaplex.com to see our latest listings. 

We’re also on instagram @zenft.art! 


@gbergphoto

@pHarrisDesigns 

22 


PROBABLY 

NOTHING 

@joemccann 42.9K Followers 

2022 Alpha: 

Risk taking is the purest form of virtue. Entrepreneur. 

Angel Investor. Margin Trader. NFT 

collector. @monkedao & @ftx_official from 

Day 1. 

Defi Options Vaults’ (DOVs) aggregate TVL will grow triple digits 

y/y, highest on @solana and @terra_money (assuming structured 

products ships later in the year for Terra). 

Options by extension become “mainstream” and eventually become 

creative tools for NFTs and Web3 games (sell covered calls against 

your @SolanaMBS, buy puts against your @staratlas spaceship). 

@RobinhoodApp did an excellent job of abstracting away the 

complexity of equity options trading. I suspect we’ll see folks like 

@ZetaMarkets follow suit on the UX to onboard even more into 

options in crypto. 

Developers are flocking to web 3.0 dApp building so much 

so that “crypto” developer is now the highest-paying remote 

work job behind Swift (mobile) and AWS (cloud). Solana’s 

most recent hackathon in June of 2021 observed a 1250% 

increase in the number of applicants from its first hackathon 

just six months prior. 


H.1 

INORGANIC 

hans___s 

materials 

Within the last three years, Hans (George Teglas & Jonathan Jimenez) 

has been progressing on the premise of collecting tangible data, 

more specifically, material interactions. Through such development 

whilst operating in the world of design, we aim to bridge the gap 

between tangible and digital matter. Components ranging from builtin 

environments to typographic systems primarily represent analogue 

media used to express such purpose. While this purpose stems from 

an unknown source, we find it imperative to acknowledge its direct/ 

indirect correlation to our contextual backgrounds. Although the 

direct parallel between such influences and our present propositions 

remains unclear, it is rooted within our core to expand within diverse 

practical pillars to build and nurture innate operating frameworks. 

24 


Following the set premise, our desired aftermath centers around 

constructing an ecosystem where design attributes and digital 

components can be utilized towards the integration of design 

within the dialogic equation of social optimism. Hans has dealt with 

physical and digital propositions such as publications, products, 

web interfaces, photography, videography and soundscapes; all of 

which have contributed to the growth and overall expansion of the 

entity. Moving forward, H.1 — Inorganic materials, contextualizes 

three substances: shale, copper, ceramic. Each of these, have 

been carefully curated based upon specific attributes mainly their 

abundance and prominence within our surroundings, distinctive 

individual properties, and their emotional connection to our being. 

The product; 3 materials / 3 soundscapes / 3 photos in context 1 

ethos explored through various media. 


In the hope of integrating purposeful design into the space of NFT’s, 

Hans utilizes its conceptual systems to put forth an orchestra of 

optical outputs triggering specific human outcomes. Starting from 

H.1, an integral push towards the implementation of photographic 

means, we plan on following with the integration of videography, 

publication and product. 

26 


https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/662155985 

SHILL Issue #27 27

PHANTOM 

WALLET 

NFT Launch 

cancelled 

By Anvi https://nftevening.com/ 

Solana’s Phantom wallet will soon launch its iOS app. In fact, the 

team initially planned to sell 7,000 NFTs and provide owners with 

early access to the release. Following the above announcement, 

Solana received a lot of criticism from users. 

After which, Phantom scrapped its NFT launch. 

28 


Solana’s Phantom Wallet: What’s the whole matter? 

Yesterday, Solana wallet announced their NFT drop featuring 7,000 

collectables. This drop was part of a collaboration with the Solana 

NFT marketplace, Magic Eden. 

Originally, the plan was to conduct an NFT Dutch auction starting 

at the price of 8 SOL, with a decrease of 0.25 SOL every 10 minutes 

until all NFTs sold out. 

Subsequently, users shared their frustration towards the whole 

scenario. 

Twitter user 0xMav wrote “web2: get paid to test apps web3: pay 

to test apps”. By the same token, other users addressed that the 

NFT release might go against Apple’s App store rule, which states 

beta products “cannot be distributed to testers in exchange for 

compensation of any kind, including as a reward for crowdsource 

funding. 

Phantom also mentioned it “never meant to alienate anyone and 

never intended on profiting from the auction in any way.” 

At last, Solana’s wallet Phantom decided to change its approach. 

Given that, Phantom distributed 1,000 free invites which ran out 

within minutes. However, the remaining invites will be sent out 

throughout this week. So keep an eye out! 

That’s not it; Phantom also pledged to donate $200,009 worth of 

SOL to a tech-focused non-profit, “Girls Who Code” Despite the 

backlash, Phantom has been performing well with over 1.8 million 

monthly active users. Solana will launch Phantom’s iOS app properly 

in early 2022. 


AUDIUS PLAYLISTS 

Send your playlist to: 

pixeltoy.sol@gmail.com 

to be included in the next issue. LIVE LINKS - CLICK IMAGE 

30 


SHILLthe 

MINT 

@errortheory404 


SHILL th 

@S_G_O_A_T 

32 


e MINT 

@tonguesociety 


art_by_micro 

34 


SHILL the MINT 

Nicola41857753 


Dimension Of Solana


Newborn Iguanas

@ChimpanzeeTribe


@Pot_Heads_NFT

40 


SOLANALYSIS 7D volume 

42 


PROJECTS / TOP GAINERS 

The Astronaut @thexastronaut 


MOVERS UNDER & OVER 2Sol 

SolsWatch 

44 


Did you see it? 

@art_by_micro 


RVDY_HRTN 

46 



redrabbitcult 


48Did you see it? 


@sleeprNFT 


vartanfriedman


xxalfsyr

XeonSol 


52 



Did you see it?

BBPOSION

CutFlowerz 

Did you see it?

a l p h a m i n t s

hans____s

Decoded

James Johnson

StompArt

33Calico

@3Pscrgg2e

@dato_art

@64jooski

SolKorzai

LostOnesNFT

pHarrisDesigns

pupeilustra

nastia_n_n

GenesysGo 

and the 

$SHDW 

IDO cont... 

https://genesysgo.medium.com/ 

That’s great… but what are you actually building towards? 

A slide from the third Shadowy Super Coder Town Hall 

First, a recording of our third Town Hall is viewable here: https:// 

youtu.be/sFAQ9hPqaBg — In this Town Hall we go over, in depth, 

what the Shadow Protocol is, what we are building, and how it plugs 

into the Solana ecosystem. 

Second, to make sure everyone is on the same page as far as the 

nomenclature goes… 

Shadow Protocol = Broad sweeping term which includes all things 

related to the $SHDW token, decentralized RPC, decentralized 

72 


storage, and the community that contributes compute to earn rewards. 

Shadow Network = Decentralized RPC Network 

Shadow Drive = Decentralized Storage Solution 

Shadow Nodes = The actual servers that make up the Shadow Network/ 

Shadow Drive 

Shadow Operator = The person who contributes compute power in 

exchange for token rewards paid out in $SHDW 

Tech Talk AMA hosted by Steven is here — https://youtu.be/gbeOzLq8N0Y 

In this Tech Talk, Steven peeks under the hood of our RPC network and 

how it operates… in addition to highlighting the process for Shadow 

Operators to connect to our network and begin earning rewards. 


There are many RPC providers out there at this point, sure. However, 

all but two (we will touch on the two decentralized providers shortly) 

are fully centralized and have significant overhead. The RPC server 

space is also becoming increasingly crowded and, as such, it will 

continue to be (as someone once phrased it) a “race to zero” as RPC 

providers are forced to provide more bells and whistles for less. 

The two decentralized RPC from other chains (POKT and ANKR) 

both struggle to generate the throughput needed to power Solana. 

To date, both have failed to launch a working server on Solana. 

POKT and ANKR both suffer from the same thing that makes 

RPC servers powered by AWS, Hertzner, and Google Cloud highly 

unreliable on Solana… they are incapable of handling Solana’s 

throughput requirements without failing. Solana is incredibly 

performant and, as such, it will always be hard for RPC providers, 

who built their foundational architecture on other chains, to port over 

to Solana and thrive. In order for that port to happen successfully, it 

would require a fundamental redesign of their key architecture which 

would be expensive and time consuming. 

As such, our Shadow Network will be the first fully functioning 

decentralized RPC server network that is designed specifically to 

handle Solana’s throughput needs. 

What is the benefit of this and why would you eat such a huge cost 

like that? 

Well, it very much fits into our ethos of empowering the community 

to help strengthen and expand the infrastructure of Solana! Anyone 

supporting GenesysGo, the SSC-DAO, and our IDO is directly 

contributing to the expansion and future success of Solana. 

Secondly, a decentralized RPC structure allows us to include a very 

important KPI to use as a measure for the sustainability of both 

$SHDW and the Shadow Protocol… that KPI is the number of Shadow 

Operators contributing compute to the network. To date, we already 

have 20 individual operators who are planning to connect machines 

and add their compute to the network. 

Why is this the main KPI for us? Well, there are many levers one can 

pull in order to create a sustainable project… and one of those levers 

is in regards to expenses. Every Shadow Operator who comes on 

board to the Shadow Protocol earns rewards in $SHDW tokens… 

and, every Shadow Operator who contributes compute allows us 

74 


to reexamine and potentially reduce the amount of compute that 

our network contributes. This, in turn, reduces our expenses while 

spreading said expenses across the Shadow Operator layer. This 

“spreading of the expenses” reduces their overall impact and makes 

them much more manageable. Our goal then becomes to ensure that 

the emissions of $SHDW are incentive enough to make becoming a 

Shadow Operator appealing. 

In addition, Shadow Operators serve a key role in reducing the 

circulating supply of $SHDW tokens which acts as a drag on the 

overall token velocity of $SHDW. This is due to the fact that Shadow 

Operators are required to stake a certain number of $SHDW tokens 

in order to earn rewards (more on this below). This creates a 

deflationary effect on the total supply which means the onboarding 

of Shadow Operators is a key mechanism for judging the direction 

and health of the project as a whole. 

Ultimately, over the long term we expect our server expenses to 

drop below 95% of their current levels as we integrate more Shadow 

Operators and the need for a centralized server backbone is reduced. 

Through the use of smart contracts, open-sourced resources, and 

server redundancies on the Shadow Operator level, we are building 

a fully self sustaining architecture that can scale automatically as 

Solana scales while not being reliant on a core team in order to 

survive. 

This is best summed up using slides from our 3rd Town Hall. 

So what’s the TL;DR? Solana needs an optimized storage solution 

that protects the integrity of the consensus when storing the data. 

We have a unique perspective when viewing the ecosystem because 

we communicate directly with developers about their needs on a 

daily basis. 

The need for full access to a copy of the Solana historical ledger 

and broad “Account State” that is truly immutable has increased 

dramatically over the past several months. This is a mission critical 

need for the Solana blockchain if it is to continue growing and 

scaling. 

This is also a relatively easy lift in terms of the workload because 

of our in-depth knowledge of how information is shared between 

different validators and validators to RPC servers. As such, we expect 

the timeline around storing a truly immutable copy of the total state 


of all accounts in the Solana AccountsDB to be measured in weeks 

rather than months. 

Our most recent talent acquisitions have all been focused on bringing 

onboard engineers with strong backgrounds in building distributed 

database systems in both the web2 and web3 spaces, as well as 

hands on experience building in Rust (the native programming 

language of Solana). 

As such, our ability to warp a general decentralized storage solution 

for the Solana ecosystem would also be measured in a matter of 

weeks rather than months. 

At the moment, Arweave is the primary storage solution used by a 

great many builders on Solana however this is largely a function of 

there not being any other alternative. We receive messages from 

developers on a consistent basis asking why they are receiving RPC 

errors when doing Arweave uploads and we explain that this is due 

to the fact that Arweave’s chain is not fast enough to keep up with 

Solana’s. When this happens, transactions start to fail but the failure 

is coming from Arweave’s side. 

There is an appetite in the Solana ecosystem for an optimized 

storage solution and, due to the sheer amount of data that the Solana 

ecosystem creates, we see this as a huge market opportunity. 

Plus, this is right in our wheelhouse… we started GenesysGo and 

our RPC network with the mindset that existing RPC services 

enforced rate limits because their architecture was not optimized 

for Solana. We then examined the landscape, took the best qualities 

of all providers, and then bootstrapped what has turned into an 

incredibly successful venture. Stepping into the landscape, building 

an optimized solution, and then growing user adoption is what we 

do best. 

That’s fair! I appreciate you letting me lay all of that information out 

for you. Context setting is important simply because of the broad 

nature of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. 

It also drives home what I’m about to say, which is… The $SHDW 

token is meant to be a 100% utility token. However, in order for it to 

be a true utility token, it is important we take the time to understand 

the full context of the protocol it is providing utility for. 

Without this context then $SHDW goes from being a “utility token” 

76 


to just another “coin” that is tied to faceless Discord server that 

posts every week or so that “big things are happening” and “big 

announcements are coming soon!” 

The use case and utility for the token should be clearly spelled out 

rather than us simply waving our hands, saying that “We’re an infra 

provider and we’re powered by a token” and letting people draw their 

own conclusions of what that means. The token use case and the 

project it is powering should be clearly and plainly laid out rather 

than loose associations drawn. 

(continued next issue) 


douglasrmccurdy

SHILL Issue 27

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