“Oh my God there’s a shit ton of money in crypto, and I’m gon’ get my slice with Solana.”
Ebuka* did not mince words about his ambitions in the web3 space. Like many young, tech-savvy Nigerians, he knew the crypto market was experiencing a bull run—a quadrennial surge in capital inflow that pushes the average prices of crypto tokens to new highs—and his bet was on the blockchain protocol, Solana.

Prosperity in web3 will not come by just flipping tokens for profit, Ebuka told me. “I actually want to build world-class products on Solana and make a fortune from them.” With these words, the 22-year-old student echoed the ethos of a web3 community dominant on Nigerian crypto Twitter: Superteam NG.

Co-led by web3 marketing expert, Harrison Obiefule, Superteam NG—the Nigerian entity of Superteam DAO—is a community of talented techies interested in building products on the Solana blockchain. Spread across 21 states in Nigeria, these young builders carry the ultimate vision of solving local pain points with Solana’s technology stack.

“If you're building on Solana, Superteam has the connections, resources, and experience to help you scale your project. Whether you're looking to be introduced to VCs in the Solana ecosystem, seeking experienced developers, or trying to get grants, Superteam is the community empowered to help you scale,” Obiefule said on a call with NODO.

Nigeria to the world

Superteam DAO is present in over eight countries globally, including the UK, UAE, and Germany. Its goal is simple: onboard builders into thriving communities that drive local web3 (mostly Solana) adoption. “That’s also what we do at Superteam NG,” Obiefule said in response to the nature of his team’s work. “But our work is special because we’re putting Nigeria on the global map.”

Three Nigerian upstarts have made this brag possible for Obiefule: Skoutwatch, Clusttr, and Nomad. Skoutwatch, which uses compressed NFTs to create a marketplace for African football talents, came second place in its track at the Only Possible On Solana (OPOS) hackathon last October.

By the next month, Clutter came in the top five of the physical infrastructure networks track at Hyperdrive, a global Solana hackathon. However, the biggest win for Harri and his team happened last quarter, when Nomad raked in $15,000 for winning third place in the Payments and DeFi track at Renaissance, another of Solana’s global hackathons. Nomad bridges traditional finance with DeFi, enabling local cash transfers that circumvent NIBSS, Nigeria’s central switch system.

“It’s like the team is on steroids! We’ve proven we can win on the global stage. Now the goal is to make this more consistent and give Nigeria some dominance on the Solana world map. Trust me, we’ve got what it takes,” Obiefule bragged.

“We build differently”

Nigeria has a talent problem. A 2023 SAP Africa report highlighted how 100% of businesses in the country reported suffering negative impacts due to a lack of adequate tech skills. Even worse, there’s a raging exodus of tech talents from Nigeria, a precarious situation for any blockchain protocol seeking to expand its local adoption.

“What most global chains do when they get to Africa is try to poach the top guys already building on some L2s. They go after them with grants and opportunities then think they’ve got a community. But at the end of the day, those guys never stay. They always jump for the higher bidder,” Obiefule shared, painfully.

Supateam NG’s approach to this is targeting those no one is for going for: university students and very early-stage developers who have more potential than experience. The team then absorbs them into a lifetime learning experience with Solana.

This way, the talents end up as lifetime advocates of the blockchain, Obiefule opined. “No one is taking them away because we ensure they grow and earn as builders. We give them what they need to be global stars.”

While this approach seems longer, as talents would typically need longer to grow than if they were already experienced blockchain builders, Superteam NG’s leadership believes long term is the goal. “A 5-10year approach to dominance is better than onboarding mercenaries,” said Obiefule.

Following the North Star

Superteam entities globally flex their weight through their community GDP, a 'North Star' metric that totals earning opportunities created by members for other members in the region. Jobs, bounties, prizes and grants are added to calculate this metric, which Obiefule boasts of increasing from $1,225 last August to about $88,707 as of press time.

“We believe strongly in creating earning opportunities for our members,” said Obiefule. “We can’t talk about wider crypto adoption if folks aren’t earning in crypto. That’s our way of ensuring the community is well-fed.”

For the seasoned web3 operator, the future of Superteam NG is a financially self-sufficient community channelling droves of talented innovators to Solana’s tech stack. “I’d like to see us work directly with some of the biggest projects on Solana—like Phantom and Backpack,” Obiefule said.

Solana has had a terrific year so far, capturing nearly half of crypto investors’ interest and edging closer to its “Ethereum killer” sobriquet. Superteam NG is betting on translating this buzz into the local adoption of Solana.

“I’ve made some serious dough from flipping Solana memecoins, but that’s nothing compared to what will happen when my product becomes the next big thing on Solana,” Ebuka shared.

Names* have been changed to keep source anonymous