Quicknode

May 28, 2025 — 5 min read

We’re excited to spotlight Badchain, the culture-first Layer 2 from the team behind Bandit Network. Built on Solana, Badchain turns quests, memes, and behavior into onchain rewards. Since joining the Quicknode Rollup Accelerator, they’ve launched their Alphanet, activated over 320,000 tokens, and brought serious energy to events like Solana Crossroads and TOKEN2049.

Q & A with Badchain👇

Who are you, and what’s the mission behind Badchain?

We’re the team behind Bandit Network, a Web3 growth engine that has worked with projects like Bonk, Brave, Shardeum, and Astar — activating millions of transactions, NFT mints, and user actions. Our background spans product, engineering, and growth, with a focus on viral mechanics and incentive design.

Our team includes:

• A former IBM engineer with 12 years of experience, who also built India’s largest NFT marketplace under WazirX (Binance-acquired)

• Contributors to Superteam, winners of Bonkathon, and core builders at VShard

• Full-stack talent across tech, marketing, and community engagement

With Badchain, we’re building Solana’s culture layer — a chain designed to reward behavior, not just transactions. Our goal is to turn quests, memes, and discovery into onchain incentives that compound over time. Think raffles, roasts, meme quests, and even gas that pays you back. We’re not just launching another L2 — we’re designing a new way for communities to grow together, onchain.

What drew you to Quicknode’s Rollup Accelerator, and how has it shaped your journey so far?

Quicknode’s reputation for powering some of the most important infra in Web3 made the Rollup Accelerator an easy choice. For us at Badchain, where we’re focused on turning user behavior into an onchain growth engine, access to deep technical guidance and rollup expertise was key.The program has helped us move faster — from refining our architecture to understanding what it takes to ship something scalable and production-ready. Just a few weeks in, we’ve already made important decisions around stack, data availability, and incentive design — all with the support of Quicknode’s team.

We came in to build Solana’s culture layer. With Quicknode behind us, we’re scaling it with confidence.

What’s been the highlight of your experience in the accelerator over the past few weeks?

The Quicknode RollOut Accelerator has been packed with value, but the Opening Ceremony and Chain Founders Panel truly set the tone — hearing from founders like Mark Smargon and Daryl Xu gave us clarity on the long game of building a successful chain.

Then came the Stacking Up Panel — getting perspectives from leaders across Arbitrum, Optimism, Linea, and others helped us benchmark where Badchain fits in this fast-evolving rollup landscape. We’re not just another L2 — we’re designing for behavior, memes, and culture-first incentives, and it was energizing to hear how others are approaching scalability and differentiation.

Sessions on building a DeFi ecosystem and securing your chain helped us think through early ecosystem design and threat modeling, while branding and PR workshops reminded us: it’s not enough to be technically sound — people need to feel something about your chain. That’s core to Badchain’s thesis.

Each week has sharpened our approach — and Pitch Day prep has us fired up to bring our weird, wonderful story to the investor world.

What key milestones have you hit during the program, and what lessons have stuck with you?

Key Milestones and Lessons during the program on Badchain:

Alphanet Launch: We officially cooked and launched our Alphanet — the first meme-able Layer 2 on Solana. With the repurposed /send command, users could interact directly, staking tBadSOL, claiming test tokens, and sending tTooBAD in a seamless, chaotic experience. Over 320K+ tooBAD tokens distributed so far — and we’re just getting started.

Bounties & Community Activation: We dropped two major bounties:

• Badchain Content Creator Bounty inspired a wave of memes, threads, and videos — winners earned VIP tickets to Solana Crossroads Istanbul.

• Catoff x Badchain Roast Bounty turned product feedback into meme warfare with Catoff Esports.

We also refreshed our Ambassador program by removing inactive members and bringing in new, super-active Baddies — more energy, less dead weight.

IRL Presence & Events:

• At Solana Crossroads Istanbul, Badchain showed up as an official partner with multiple stands, an exclusive magazine cover collaboration with FOMO, and our “What Do You Meme? Badchain Edition” card game — a hit for laughs and community bonding.

• We went full-on IRL chaos at SEZ Dubai and TOKEN2049 Dubai.

Lessons Learned:

• Community fuels everything: Engaging the community through creative bounties, memes, and offline events creates unstoppable momentum.

• Balance chaos and control: Letting the platform be “chaotic” is part of our identity — but that chaos must be underpinned by rock-solid technology and a clear product vision.

• IRL connections matter: Digital-first is great, but real-world interactions build trust, loyalty, and buzz that amplify growth.

• Keep upgrading: Even as we celebrate milestones, the work to improve scalability and user experience never stops — preparing for bigger launches and more users.

Overall we learnt that to truly “roll” with Badchain, you have to embrace the unexpected, innovate boldly, and keep the community at the heart of everything.

What’s next for Badchain, and how do you plan to make waves in Web3?

We're entering the next critical phase: launching our incentivized testnet, designed not just for traction but for retention and real user behavior.

Our go-to-market playbook includes:

• Quest-based participation to bootstrap activity and community

• Native token incentives tied to meaningful onchain actions

• Brave-style advertising + meme-led virality to drive top-of-funnel

We're focused on turning Badchain into the default home for campaign-driven L2 activity, where builders can plug in fast and users can actually have fun. Post-Testnet, we’ll scale toward Mainnet and ecosystem onboarding, with tooling that turns every campaign into a growth engine.

The mission is clear: turn user acquisition into a game, not a grind.

Check them out at badchain.org and follow on X: @bad_chain