Colosseum Codex: SOLCTF, Surfpool Scenarios and Fixtures, Metis v7
SOLCTF, Surfpool Scenarios and Fixtures, Metis v7, SOLx402 MCP Server, OpenSigner Wallet Key Management
Here's what's featured in this week's issue:
- SolCTF is a new "Capture the Flag" Platform for Solana
- Surfpool v0.12 Introduces Scenarios and Fixtures
- Jupiter Spins Off Metis as a Standalone Routing Engine
- SOLx402 MCP Server Plugs Agents Into x402 Payments
- OpenSigner is Key Management Layer for Non-custodial Wallets
🕵️♀️ SOLCTF
SolCTF just gives Solana developers a way to dive into program security. It’s a "Capture the Flag" platform built around real challenges that test your ability to spot bugs, reverse-engineer contracts, and think like an attacker.
The idea is simple:
- Pick a challenge: Each puzzle is labeled by difficulty and comes with a reward.
- Dig into the details: You’ll explore program logs, onchain programs, and even image files to find hidden keyphrases or vulnerabilities.
- Submit your solution: If you crack it, verify your answer on-chain to claim SOLCTF tokens or NFTs and move up the leaderboard.
SolCTF started as a hackathon project and grew through a few iterations before launch. It's meant for devs who want to get better at writing secure code by actually breaking things.
🛠️ Surfpool v0.12
Surfpool v0.12 introduces two additions for Solana testing, Scenarios and Fixtures, both aimed at making complex behavior easier to model and debug.
Scenarios let you define a sequence of account states over time and load that timeline into your Surfnet. Surfpool can override account states across future slots so you can reproduce intricate onchain conditions for modeling edge cases such as black swan events, oracle price swings, or liquidity shocks.
Fixtures focus on reproducibility and collaboration. For any given transaction, Surfpool can output a clean JSON file containing all of the pre-execution accounts that transaction touches. That snapshot becomes a portable fixture you can plug into tests, use to track down bugs locally, or share with others without requiring full access to a live environment.
Surfpool v0.12 Introduces Scenarios and Fixtures
🏦 Metis v7
Metis v7 is launching with major upgrades and will now operate independently of Jupiter under its own domain.
Originally the core routing engine for Jupiter, Metis will continue serving as a low-level swap primitive optimized for builders who need full control over execution.
Key improvements in v7 include JIT aggregation for better on-chain quote selection, expanded liquidity across 60+ venues, and Brent Op Splitting for hyper-granular trade routing.
Access to Metis will require an API or Binary Key, with access gated behind 10,000 staked JUP.
Metis is recommended for devs building custom programs or managing their own infra, and will continue to receive support while Jupiter’s core development focuses on Ultra and other DeFi products.
🤖 SOLx402 MCP Server
SOLx402 MCP Server is a new bridge between AI assistants and onchain payments on Solana.
It sits on top of the x402 payment protocol and exposes it through Model Context Protocol (MCP), so agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or Copilot can discover services, handle USDC flows, and pull in Solana context without wiring everything manually.
The server lets an AI agent find available x402-enabled services, fetch facilitators, see protocol flows, and consume a service with automatic USDC payment handling. It also exposes wallet-level functions, like returning a public key or checking USDC balance.
SOLx402 bundles MCP tools that plug into Anchor docs, general Solana documentation search, and “ask an expert” helpers, so the same agent that’s triggering payments can also look up how the underlying programs work.
It’s basically an AI-native wrapper around x402 and core Solana dev resources, aimed at anyone trying to make agents that can actually use on-chain services.
👛 OpenSigner Wallet Key Management
OpenSigner is a new key management layer for non-custodial wallets, built to let teams ship wallets without outsourcing control of their keys.
Instead of storing a private key in one place, OpenSigner splits it into three shares and keeps them across the user’s device, a hot store, and a cold store.
Any two shares are enough to reconstruct the key, but the key only exists ephemerally inside an iframe when a signing operation is needed and is discarded right after.
OpenSigner also handles UX flows like password-based recovery, passkey-based recovery, and automatic recovery patterns that abstract complexity away from users.
It provides developers a single stack to manage user keys, signing, and recovery logic, while keeping the user’s keys non-custodial and avoiding dependence on HSM-based setups.
The result is a pattern similar to what big consumer apps use for secure key access, but packaged as a wallet-focused, open stack you can run yourself.
OpenSigner: Vendor-Neutral Key Management
⚡ Quick Hits
Build a Solana Android App with React Native, Expo & MWA - Quicknode
Introducing Magic Actions: Automatically execute Solana transactions from within an Ephemeral Rollup - @magicblock
Heaven V2: An Open AMM - @peacefuldecay
Resource list to learn the SVM - @0xcastle_chain
Introducing Iris Transaction Sender by Astralane - @Quicknode
Fuse wins App of the Year at the 2025 Expo App Awards - @fusewallet
How Harmonic is rebuilding Solana’s sequencing layer for fair, high-speed markets - Token Relations
Where do I start on Solana? 100 projects, communities, and resources for developers and founders - @_JerryLi
⚙️ Tools & Resources
arcium-election is an example encrypted election app built with Arcium where every user's choices are private, the running count is kept hidden, and only the winner is revealed.
wallet-ui-playground is a tool that shows which wallet-standard features and chains your installed browser wallets currently support.
solify is a CLI tool that generates test suites for Solana Anchor programs by analyzing your program's IDL to create test files with positive and negative test cases, account setup, and PDA initialization.
cnft-candymachine-v2 demonstrates how to create a cNFT candy machine using Metaplex Bubblegum V2, with cNFTs minted into MPL-Core collections instead of standard token metadata collections.
x402tool is a CLI for interacting with x402 APIs on Solana that enables GET and POST requests to x402-protected endpoints and automatically handles payments.
💸 Funding
Coinbase announced it is acquiring Vector, an onchain trading platform built on Solana. The Tensor Foundation will remain independent and will continue to operate the Tensor NFT marketplace and its native token separately from Coinbase.
💀 RIP
Blockchain analytics and discovery platform DappRadar is shutting down after the founders stated that the platform had become financially unsustainable in the current financial environment.
👩🔧 Get Hired
- Quicknode is hiring a Technical Operations Engineer, Solana
- Swig is hiring a Founding Engineer
- Anza is hiring a Software Engineer, Onchain Data
- Helius is hiring a Sr. Full-Stack Engineer, Developer Portal
- Exodus is hiring a Staff Solana Engineer
📅 Event Calendar
Midwest Blockchain Conference, Ann Arbor, MI, Dec 5-6
The Midwest Blockchain Conference (MBC) is a student-led blockchain conference hosted at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, connecting 500+ students from 70+ universities worldwide with leading crypto and fintech companies, speakers, sponsors, and opportunities, alongside live music, after-parties, and structured networking aimed at driving real career and ecosystem outcomes.
🎧 Listen to This
Genfinity
This episode is a Solana deep dive with Solana Foundation Head of Product Marketing Vibhu, exploring how Solana fits into the future of digital economies, internet capital markets, creator tools, core tech, and stablecoins, and how Solana’s infrastructure could underpin the next generation of on-chain products and digital infrastructure.
A Conversation w/ Solana Foundation Head of Product Marketing Vibhu
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