On Halloween in November 2023, Solana co-creator Anatoly Yakovenko appeared at the Solana Breakpoint 2023 conference in Amsterdam wearing a "Silly Dragon" costume. Then on December 5, the memecoin "Silly Dragon" on Solana was officially launched. From the initial 0.00002875 USDT to 0.15 USDT, SILLY increased more than 5,200 times in more than 20 days.
However, the Silly team is not content with just being a memecoin, but wants to develop Silly Dragon into a powerful cultural movement. This cultural movement also phased out the rise of SILLY in January. In the past two months, SILLY once plummeted to around 0.019 USDT, and the Chinese Silly Dragon community has been unable to recover since then.
However, the SILLY market has improved in recent days and is currently fluctuating between 0.05 and 0.06 USDT. At the same time, Foresight News also invited Rahim Mawani, Silly Dragon’s head of community growth, for an exclusive interview. He asked him to tell us what the team has been doing in the past two months, how the ecological construction is going, and where it will go in the future.
1. From Cosplay to Memecoin
Foresight News: Please introduce yourself and your team members, what are you each responsible for, and what were you doing before Silly Dragon? How did everyone come together?
Rahim Mawani: I am Rahim, Head of Community Growth at Silly Dragon, and I am primarily responsible for growing our brand presence through strategic partnerships within the Solana ecosystem. Prior to that, I served as Community Lead at Solana Collective, the Solana Foundation’s global ambassador program.
I discovered this project from my friend David, a core Silly Dragon contributor who assists with community events and other collaborative projects that benefit Silly's development. Other core team members include SillyDev, co-founder and chief development officer, and SillyDragonRed, chief operating officer. SillyDragonRed oversees everything and controls our art and design alongside anonymous artists. We met on Twitter and met to help make the Solana community stronger.
Foresight News: What do you attribute to Silly Dragon’s success in achieving a 230-plus-fold gain in December? Apart from the Chinese Lunar Year of the Dragon culture, what does the Silly Dragon mean in Western culture?
Rahim Mawani: Inspired by Solana co-created Anatoly (also known as Toly). During Halloween, he cosplayed Silly Dragon at the Solana Breakpoint conference; then on November 8, 2023, he wrote on Twitter: "Silly Dragon Year of the silly dragon.
After that, Toly began to recognize us, follow us, and forward our tweets. His support promoted the attention and support of other elites in the Solana ecosystem. Silly Dragon is full of positive energy, very inspiring and can resonate with people all over the world. It's the Solana mascot. Of course, we also believe in Chinese astrology. The East and the West share the same cultural magic and appeal. Let us work together to bring good luck to the world.
2. More than just Meme: Silly Dragon’s cultural movement
Foresight News: You said on Twitter that Silly Dragon is not just a Memecoin, but is developing into a cultural movement and community-oriented social financing initiative. Can you expand on that? Why did you choose to switch from Memecoin to building an ecosystem and doing projects?
Rahim Mawani: Yes, Silly cannot be separated from Toly. We will always be memecoin, but we are developing into a movement and expanding to other areas of the Solana ecosystem, such as NFT, Metaverse, VR, DeFi, etc. We also There are plans to enter GameFi, and the ultimate goal is to expand SILLY Dragon to the entire Web3 ecosystem, and this will all start with Solana.
Foresight News: Will Silly Dragon replicate Pudgy Penguins’ IP-based successful route, focusing on “brand” and cultural peripherals to expand market influence? Compared with other memecoin and NFT projects, what is Silly Dragon’s biggest advantage?
Rahim Mawani: Think of Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog, they are classic characters from hit games. It’s true that Silly Dragon isn’t recognized by the world yet, but it’s too early to discuss that yet, and as we integrate with the Solana ecosystem and game development evolves, the Silly brand will only get better. Our 8888 PFP NFT will take longer because we are integrating new features of Token Extensions, hybrid DeFi that will give our little picture better liquidity.
We will not copy or imitate any project, all we want to do is continue to innovate and become the leader in the Solana ecosystem and the entire Web3 world. We have a cooperative and growing mentality. Among the many cats and dogs, you will notice that there is only one dragon, that is SILLY. This year is our "Year of the Dragon".
Foresight News: What is Silly Dragon’s short-term, mid- to long-term road plan? What areas will you focus on? Is there a financing plan?
Rahim Mawani: In the near future, we will focus on improving brand influence, marketing, merchandise and increasing content creation. We also hope that the families in the Silly Dragon community will be happy every day, enjoy the peace and quiet, and spread positive energy. We are working on preparing a strategic partnership to promote the overall growth and development of the brand and the Silly movement.
Longer term, we are developing a cutting-edge Web3 mobile game and exploring the AR/XR space to incorporate new interactive spatial technologies into Solana Mobile. This aligns with the Solana ecosystem’s goal of onboarding 1 billion users to Solana.
Our top priority right now is increasing community engagement through fun and unique events. At the same time, we do plan to cooperate with current market makers or new market makers and VCs to raise funds and better develop Silly Dragon DAO.
Since the community owns nearly 100% of the supply and has access to liquidity pools, Lianchuang has bought back a portion to grow Silly Dragon. Additionally, we will work with partners and Solana Foundation grant programs to scale.
Foresight News: What progress have you made in building an ecosystem in the past two months?
Rahim Mawani: We have made a lot of progress during the correction over the past few months. We have launched the Zebec Instant Card for SILLY holders, which allows cash withdrawals via Visa or Mastercard. All 3333 Tolys Dragon heads sold on 3Land with our partner Indiglow Studios can be traded for SILLY. We are also launching our own SILLY NFT marketplace on 3Land. Also working with the Back an Underdog and Metaplex teams to airdrop cNFTs to the Solana Mobile community.
Hey Wallet also integrates with Silly Dragon, allowing anyone to send SILLY on Twitter through Solana. We also have support from teams like Orca, Kamino Finance and others. With the support of Toly, we become a validator node on the Solana network. Silly Dragon is one of the main contributors, ranking 11th on the Solana Mobile Chapter 2 leaderboard.
Currently, we are mainly busy launching a new website, releasing new decks and roadmaps. We also partnered with Tensor, the NFT marketplace on Solana, to host a Chinese Lunar Year of the Dragon themed party in Toronto.
Foresight News: Tell us about Silly Dragon’s metaverse project SILLYVERSE, and how you used SILLY tokens to mint the entire metaverse as NFT in Apple Vision Pro VR? At the same time, what is the relationship between the two? How can ordinary users participate in the experience?
Rahim Mawani: SILLYVERSE is an initiative we launched with our partners at 3 Land that allows the community to mint, build and design their own metaverse with SILLY, with the opportunity to showcase designs and win cash prizes.
We attended the Solana event in Utah and met other members of the Solana Foundation and the team like MarginFi, who got to experience our XR version of SILLYVERSE on the Apple Vision Pro for the first time. We also used VR to cast for one of our projects and made a video to show it off. In addition, we will launch Sillyverse on a new website for users to purchase.
Foresight News: Toly said that 2024 is the Year of Silly Dragon, and the Solana Foundation has also invited you to develop GameFi games on Solana Mobile. So how will the Solana Foundation support the development of Silly Dragon this year? What breakthroughs will the combination of GameFi and Solana Mobile 2 bring to the Solana ecosystem?
Rahim Mawani: The Solana Foundation is very happy to provide us with various resources, assistance or guidance and help with game development, and we also plan to apply for game development grants. The Solana Foundation continues to share support and guidance with us in technology development, marketing and business development. Currently, we have no official public recognition. In the future, we hope to work with Indiglow’s partners to introduce AR/XR into Solana Mobile.
Foresight News: You have launched various NFTs. What will be the future utility of these NFTs, and how will they empower the ecosystem and users? What do you think about NFTFi?
Rahim Mawani: All of our NFTs are unique, have their own utility, and some are just collectibles. Chibi NFTs are a collection of 50 rare animated PFPs. We have a "Dragon Avatar" for the 3 Land metaverse. Sillyverse is a world of customization. The Red, Green, and Gold Pocket Dragons are royalty rewards for active collectors and traders, and may also be redeemable for perks in the future for our early backers. Other cNFTs airdropped to various communities are souvenirs as POAP gifts for participating in events.
We also have a 3D NFT gift for the SILLY whale, which will be announced soon. Silly’s final NFT series will be the 8888 PFP series, which has just been mentioned.
NFT is our on-chain brand, and every digital asset means the expansion of Silly’s business. Regardless, the Silly Dragon community has a bright future and we are exploring ways to integrate our NFTs.
Foresight News: There are many Chinese elements in your Chibi NFT. For example, what does "Chibi" mean? Will there be more Chinese elements in the PFP and games planned to be launched in the future?
Rahim Mawani: We are very willing to learn more Chinese elements from the community, and welcome everyone to put forward creative ideas in our discussion area. Chibi means small and cute style and is a form of animation.
We are also very interested in incorporating more Asian elements into our upcoming PFPs and games, as Chinese culture is exciting and resonates with traditional arts.
3. "The most valuable thing is to stay true"
Foresight News: SILLY has continued to weaken in the past two months, and the confidence and activity of the Chinese community has been obviously affected. Many people joked that they hope you will "make more markets and do less", but I noticed that SILLY holders have exceeded 30,000 Name, what do you think about this issue? What actions will be taken to boost community confidence?
Rahim Mawani: During this past period, SILLY holders have actually increased to 32,000 due to the airdrop of rewards to cNFT holders during our Year of the Dragon New Year event.
We are not interested in "pump and dump" tactics, instead we are building a movement driven by veterans and inspired naturally, regardless of how low the current price is or harsh feedback from the Chinese community .
The Chinese community really needs to understand what we are doing, no one is leaving, it is always building. I believe that our efforts will soon be reflected in the price. When you pull the market, community confidence will naturally increase. There is a proverb that goes well: success does not have to be mine, but skill must not be wasted.
Foresight News: You said that the team is only 5 people now and is working on more than 100 projects. Are you busy enough? How many hours do you sleep every day?
Rahim Mawani: We are recruiting people to expand our team. There are so many projects that cannot be accomplished overnight. We will give priority to the most influential ones at the moment. Therefore, we are not overloaded with work, but a balance between work and rest. I take about 6 hours of downtime every day and spend 1 hour doing yoga, qigong, meditation or fitness. Since joining Silly Dragon (10 days after the project started), I have been working about 16 to 18 hours a day and have always believed in "SILLY to a BILLY"!
Foresight News: I see that you have ambitious plans in various fields such as DeFi, GameFi, Metaverse, NFT, etc. Judging from the current market conditions, it can be challenging to survive in any of these fields, let alone excel. With limited team resources, how do you plan to stand out in such fierce competition?
Rahim Mawani: We are so resource-rich and have access to the smartest people on the planet, we lack nothing. We hope that Silly Dragon can bring more happiness to everyone. We hope to share unique ideas, and we will also uphold a positive, open, innovative and cooperative mentality to attract development teams, project parties and designers with high IQ and high emotional intelligence. At the same time, we will make more efforts in the fields of AR/XR, mobile and games to maintain our brand characteristics.
No one can take away what belongs to us, and staying true is the most valuable thing.
Foresight News: Finally, what do you think Silly Dragon’s future positioning will be in the Solana ecosystem? What impact will it have on the Solana ecosystem?
Rahim Mawani: The Silly Dragon is Solana’s totem, which symbolizes luck and happiness. SILLY will represent the future of Web3 mobile games. As a leader in XR cutting-edge space technology, SILLY will combine the digital dimension with the real world and bring 1 billion active users to Solana.