Solana Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko on Memecoins

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, credits the rise of memecoins for stress-testing and enhancing the resilience of the network, turning past outages into innovation opportunities.

During a discussion at the Emergence conference in Prague with George Calle from The Block, Yakovenko humorously remarked, "Blessed are the memecoin traders, for those who can overcome their spam will inherit the metaverse." He explained that tackling engineering challenges through memecoins strengthens the network and its systems.

Yakovenko noted that Solana developers are accustomed to "chewing glass," meaning they tackle tough problems to achieve a highly performant network. After several outages in 2022, the network encountered only one downtime incident last year in February, following the Pump.fun launch.

Changes in Approach

When asked about Solana’s approach to handling the influx of memecoins, Yakovenko pointed out, "We were just lucky enough to ship fast enough to have those bugs behind us." He discussed the complexities of scaling performance with multi-core systems, explaining that interconnected problems like memory bandwidth bottlenecks can significantly impact transaction throughput.

Some issues, he stated, could only be identified during operation rather than through testing. “These problems…I have never seen anyone predict them in research,” Yakovenko added, emphasizing that rapid deployment and ongoing stress testing contributed to their improvements.

Solana's Advantages

Yakovenko highlighted how Solana's single state architecture allows for faster and simpler solutions compared to Layer 2 networks. He mentioned, “Raydium did not expect that every memecoin is going to use their pools for launches, but nobody had to ask Raydium, 'Hey can we do this?'”

The ease of use within the ecosystem minimizes fees and friction, promoting a vibrant environment for developers. He pondered whether such efficiencies could be replicated in Layer 2 systems, noting that while theoretically possible, developers generally prefer simpler routes.

Surprised by the initial popularity of memecoins, Yakovenko later concluded that entertainment plays a significant role in digital economies, leading to financial successes. “When I start to think of it backwards, it’s almost obvious in retrospect,” he said.