The Strata protocol is a platform that makes it easy to create and sell tokens on Solana. The name “Strata Protocol” reflects the idea that the protocol abstracts away layers of work that would have been done by anyone or team seeking to create a token on Solana.
Strata is designed to be extremely user friendly, from Solana noobies to even the most seasoned developers. Since Strata is built on the Solana blockchain, it can take advantage of the low-fee model and pass those savings onto the user. By optimizing for user experience and keeping fees low, Strata Protocol is able to offer accessibility to anyone who wants to use the platform.
In this guide, you will learn the ins and outs of Strata Protocol. We will discuss Strata’s partnership with Metaplex and how these tools are benefiting the Solana ecosystem as a whole. In addition, we’ll highlight potential use cases by exploring how BlockAsset is using Strata for their ecosystem. Finally, we will show you how to your own Solana Token with Strata.
Let’s jump into it!
Partnerships
One of the ways by which a project shows their dedication to making an ecosystem more robust is by partnering with fellow builders. Strata Protocol is following this path closely by announcing their partnership with Metaplex.
Metaplex
Metaplex is a Solana-based protocol that makes creating and minting NFTs on Solana easy for everyday users. They have created NFT standards that can be implemented easily by the DApps on the Solana blockchain network. If you have minted an NFT on Solana, there is a good chance that you’ve interacted with Metaplex.
Metaplex is most well known for the Candy Machine – a set of smart contracts used to deploy NFTs on Solana.
Metaplex & Strata
Strata is bringing a new pricing model to Metaplex. It’s called Dynamic Pricing, and it’s designed to help create a price discovery during an NFT mint.
This model is effective in increasing the value of an NFT collection as more people rush to mint them. If the price is set too low, it won’t reflect the true demand for that asset, and if it’s too high, fewer people will mint them.
With this partnership in place by Metaplex and Strata, everyone has a fair chance to mint an NFT from a collection of their choice. Although this is not a guarantee that they can certainly do so, it just means that every user has their fair chance during the minting process. Because of the reduction in the activity of bots, real users can also try their shot and be successful at it.
Another benefit that this partnership brings to the ecosystem is that real users that are interested in minting a project will be the ones holding it the most. It discourages quick flippers which some people say is damaging for new NFT communities.
Does Strata Protocol help with Solana congestion issues?
With those advantages above, there is still a major importance we have not touched – how this will affect the Solana network.
Recently, whenever a popular mint is occurring on Solana, the network tends to experience congestion. This is due to the massive swarm of bots that attempt to mint NFTs at launch with the goal of re-selling at a higher price. Because Solana’s fees are so low, bots are able to spam massive amounts of transactions at once with the goal of sniping an NFT at mint price.
With this dynamic pricing, if a bot participates, they are charged with high fees and the owners will incur losses. This discourages bots for minting and indirectly keeps Solana free from unnecessary spam.
It is worth noting that the latest software improvements in Solana version 1.10 have drastically improved the network.
How Blockasset uses Strata Protocol
Blockasset is a social platform built on Solana to foster cryptocurrency tokens and NFT adoption for Athletes and their fans. Blockasset uses Strata Protocol to make this happen.
What is an Athlete Token?
Social tokens are multipurpose and are typically built to represent a single entity. This could be a person, a movement, a club etc. You can also think of social tokens as a community of like-minded people with respect to a sport.
Benefits to holding social tokens include access to celebrities in the sport, merchandise, VIP sessions and materials that would have been hard for regular people to get access to. Keep in mind that this is a new industry, so use cases between social tokens (and athletes) vary depending on which one you are referring to.
The more the community formed around a cause is constantly delivering what they have planned to do, the more valuable the tokens get.
Blockasset has a token called $BLOCK whose utility is in its necessity for any activity on Blockasset that demands any form of fees for transactions.
How to Launch a Token on Solana With Strata Protocol
It is easy to launch your own Solana token by using Strata. Let’s start with the step-by-step processes involved in this token creation.
- Select “Create New Token” and click on next.
- Click on “Fully Managed”
- Input the name, photo and the description for the token you are about to create
- Give the token a Symbol e.g., SOL, COPE, SRM etc.
- Pick the price sensitivity (Selecting Utility is the least complex choice you can make)
By clicking on the orange button with the Create Token text, your tokens will be sent to the address specified during its creation.
Funding
Strata Protocol has announced a $1.5 million dollar strategic investment to build their decentralized token launchpad vision. This funding will be used to hire more team members and build more functionality into their core product to make it easier for users to spin up tokens for any purpose they desire.
This funding round was led by Multicoin Capital and other investors in the protocol includes but are not limited to Alameda Research, Solana Ventures, Asymmetric Partners and Starting Line.
There were some of those who also participated in the investment round for Strata but as Angels. Some of them are Chris McCann from Race Capital, Tristan Yver, Head of Strategy at FTX, Bill Lee of Craft Ventures, Saurabh Sharma, a partner at Jump Crypto and more investors.