Host: Sam, Rosa
Guest: Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of Solana
Source: Crypto Isn’t for Everyone (And That’s a Good Thing) with Anatoly Yakovenko
Podcast date: July 12, 2025
Organized & compiled by: Lenaxin, ChainCatcher
ChainCatcher editor summary:
This article is compiled from the More or Less podcast column with an in-depth conversation with Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko. He analyzed the industry cycle law of "punk, hoodies, and suits", pointed out that AI is just a product and encryption is a movement, and revealed how stablecoins quietly promote the globalization of the US dollar. At the same time, he explained the mission of Solana Mobile to challenge the monopoly of app stores, and proposed that the future of the crypto industry does not lie in popularization among the general public, but should focus on serving high-net-worth niche groups.
Excellent views:
AI is just a product and encryption is a movement
If Bitcoin becomes a hedging tool with the same status as gold, the encryption market will be a victory
When stablecoins are backed by real assets such as government bonds, the traditional financial system will be overturned.
The current market's perception of stablecoins is both over-focused and seriously underestimated.
The real market demand is still highly concentrated on US dollar stablecoins.
When individuals are immersed in such information cocoons for a long time, it is inevitable that their cognition is out of touch with reality.
When those who stick to their ideals withdraw, their voices disappear as well.
Opening story: The growth of Anatoly and the birth of Solana.
Anatoly: I was born in the Soviet Union. My parents immigrated immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, or more precisely, the Soviet Union. I grew up in Chicago and came to the United States at the age of 11, just as Michael Jordan was at the peak of his career with the Chicago Bulls, and was completely immersed in that craze. I spent the entire 90s there, and later went to Illinois State University to study computer science.
It was the wave of the mobile phone revolution. I worked at Qualcomm from 2004 to 2015, and participated in all the mobile phone R&D projects you can think of, and I was exposed to all the mobile operating systems at the time.
As for the opportunity to create Solana, it was after two cups of coffee and a bottle of beer at Soleil Cafe in San Francisco one day, and suddenly a flash of inspiration came to me at 4 a.m. when I was tossing and turning in bed. Six months later, I pitched the idea to Sam Russo at the Slow Bar.
The evolution of the crypto world: punks, hoodies and suits
Rosa: We are at a critical juncture: regulations have been significantly relaxed, and innovative projects have emerged intensively. In your opinion, what is the current market situation? What are the essential differences compared to a year ago?
Anatoly: I have observed that the crypto movement has many similarities with other technological waves, such as the open source movement. Objectively speaking, AI is closer to a specific product than a social movement. This development model has always followed a fixed trajectory: it was initially pioneered by punk rebellious geeks, then hoodie entrepreneurs promoted commercialization, and finally suit capital took over.
We are currently in a delicate transition period, the entrepreneurial hoodie team is becoming more mature, and suit capital has just begun to explore how to incorporate this industry and try to transform it into a form that is no different from traditional industries.
Rosa: Speaking of capital inflows, hedge funds and traditional asset management companies are now issuing various crypto products. Do you mean that they will directly incorporate the underlying blockchain technology?
Anatoly: Stablecoins are a ready-made success story. This kind of programmable currency is simply perfect, especially when they are backed by real assets such as government bonds, which is equivalent to directly subverting the traditional financial system built on fax machine technology since World War II.
Rosa: What is the actual value of stablecoins to the United States?
Anatoly: When the world is thirsty for dollars, if Tether or Circle becomes the standard carrier of programmable dollars, the United States can only follow the trend. After all, the current global economic scale has made the transformation of the US dollar system inevitable. Ordinary consumers will certainly not give up credit cards, but Visa's cooperation model with banks will definitely be innovated because it can directly reconstruct the entire clearing system based on stablecoins.
Observation on the Evolution of Crypto Ecosystem: From Value Storage to Meme Economy
Sam: Will traditional financial institutions adopt an open transformation or an implicit penetration model for the acceptance of crypto technology?
Anatoly: The key lies in functional realization. If banks only allow the holding of Bitcoin but do not support actual use, the situation will become delicate. When this model forms a scale, Bitcoin may evolve into digital gold. Although from the perspective of Securities Analysis, neither Bitcoin nor gold can be valued using the discounted cash flow model.
The essential motivation for people to hold them is fear, just as my parents did when they fled the disintegrated Soviet Union with gold. Today, Bitcoin plays the same role, which may be the only reasonable explanation. If Bitcoin one day becomes a mainstream hedging tool with the same status as gold, then no matter how you define success, the entire crypto market will be considered a success.
Sam: When traditional valuation models generally fail, what is the essential difference between crypto assets and stocks/gold? Isn't gold a millennium meme?
Anatoly: The difference lies in scale. When the gold meme reaches the trillion-dollar level and forms a global consensus, it reflects a certain essence of human civilization. We always use abstract concepts to store and transfer value.
Sam: Can you compare different value systems in the crypto field?
Anatoly: Bitcoin's abstractness makes it difficult to value with engineering thinking, but Solana's positioning is very clear: it is essentially an efficient information transmission channel. When users trade tokens, they are actually broadcasting valuable information. Since the system only executes the first matched transactions, an incentive mechanism for paying priority fees is naturally formed. The larger the transaction volume processed by the channel, the higher the income generated. It doesn't matter whether Bitcoin or USDC is transmitted, the system only processes data streams.
We are lucky to live in an increasingly wealthy world. When people have more disposable funds, they will naturally invest in all kinds of interesting things. For example, meme coins. Some people think it is interesting to issue "Bowdoin" coins that spoof Biden.
Rosa: Are all meme coins based on Solana?
Anatoly: At present, most of them are. Although there are several with the highest market value on Ethereum, Solana can produce 20,000 to 50,000 new meme coins every day, and even more than 100,000 during peak periods.
Sam: Why is the infrastructure construction of the meme coin ecosystem seriously lagging behind?
Anatoly: This is actually a system engineering problem. As long as it involves value distribution, there will be people who take advantage of loopholes. Just like when selling mobile phones at a discount, countless virtual numbers will pop up to get wool.
Cryptophone Strategy: Platform Hegemony Decrypted
Rosa: Why did Solana choose to enter the field of mobile phone hardware?
Anatoly: This stems from my professional background: I have been deeply involved in the mobile phone industry for more than ten years, and I was able to form a core team. The current Internet should be open and free, but it is being confined to users by the "sandbox" model of companies such as Apple. Although value has been created, this closed ecosystem is suffocating.
Apple, Google, and Meta are all extracting user value through the sandbox mechanism. Although their products are indeed excellent (for example, I am using Google's free email AI), encryption technology can break this monopoly. Because digital assets such as NFTs and meme coins are scarce, it is difficult for platforms to charge a 30% commission like game props. After all, these are not virtual goods that can be infinitely replicated.
The scarcity of crypto assets has completely changed the rules. Take the crypto-punk NFT as an example: there is only one in the world, and it cannot be copied infinitely like a game prop. When a user spends $10,000 to buy it, the Apple Store cannot charge a 20% handling fee. Users will not accept it, and the issuer will find it difficult to bear it.
This fundamental conflict reveals opportunities: developing exclusive devices and app stores for crypto users, charging far lower fees than traditional platforms (for example, 0.5% instead of 30%), can open up new paths in the monopoly of giants.
Rosa: Is the business model to earn transaction fees?
Anatoly: Just like Binance or Metamask, charging a tiny fee for massive crypto transactions. Although the fee rate is less than 1/30 of that of traditional platforms, the average transaction amount per crypto user is dozens of times that of ordinary Internet users.
Rosa: To attract talents to build crypto infrastructure, do we need to adjust the existing incentive system?
Anatoly: The core lies in the target user positioning. I am not sure whether the general public needs crypto products. However, although the existing crypto user group only accounts for 1% of the world's population (about 100 million people), its average user revenue (ARPU) is dozens of times that of ordinary Internet users.
Just as the founder of Pump.fun still insisted on challenging TikTok after its initial success, entrepreneurs are always pursuing their ultimate goal.
How stablecoins affect the global monetary landscape
Rosa: How will the listing of stablecoins such as Circle affect the crypto financial ecosystem?
Anatoly: There is an obvious contradiction in the current market's perception of stablecoins: both over-focusing and seriously underestimating their potential. Imagine the scene of global stablecoin circulation reaching 5 trillion US dollars, which means that the US dollar has completed a comprehensive digital transformation and has become a daily currency in Europe, Southeast Asia and even Africa.
In the absence of official support from the US government and facing strict regulatory pressure, the stablecoin market has exceeded $250 billion, and this development trend will continue to accelerate.
Rosa: Has the current global regulatory authorities changed their policy stance on stablecoins?
Anatoly: The regulatory attitude has indeed shifted this year, but the legislative process will still take 2-4 years to complete. Bitcoin has formed a unique value belief system, while the development trajectory of other encrypted applications is just like the initial popularization of email technology, and its final form cannot be accurately predicted.
Sam: How will stablecoins affect the global monetary landscape?
Anatoly: The data clearly reveals the current landscape: the development of the euro stablecoin is hindered, and the RMB stablecoin is mainly driven by policies.
However, the real market demand is still highly concentrated in the US dollar stablecoin. Even street vendors in Argentina have generally adopted USDT to hedge the inflation risk of their own currency. This process of dollarization, which is spontaneously driven by the private sector, may further consolidate the global dominance of the US dollar.
Rosa: Does this mean that "local stablecoins" are just wishful thinking of VCs?
Anatoly: Under the current financial infrastructure framework, the US dollar stablecoin has indeed effectively solved the actual payment pain points. Just as cross-border e-commerce generally adopts the existing model of US dollar settlement, the on-chain economy is spontaneously forming a similar US dollar-dominated settlement area. Unless there is mandatory policy intervention, this currency pattern based on network effects will remain stable.
Sam: Is the global penetration of US dollar stablecoins reshaping the new paradigm of US dollar hegemony?
Anatoly: From the actual effect, spontaneous choices at the micro level are more influential. When Argentine traders voluntarily adopted USDT for trade settlement, this spontaneous dollarization process was more effective than any policy intervention. If the stablecoin market exceeds $1 trillion in two years, it means that 5% of the global dollar supply has completed the transformation to on-chain form.
The dilemma of public opinion in the crypto world
Rosa: Linda has a strong network of media, customers, and industry professionals. I think her future is still bright. This incident follows the controversy of Grok, who made anti-Semitic remarks, but Musk downplayed it. What do you think of this storm?
Anatoly: This is the norm on the Internet. There are always people spreading malicious intent. Interestingly, people try to use cryptocurrency to solve such problems, such as developing anti-counterfeiting coins. But once AI systems are open to public input, it is bound to be deliberately crossed. To be honest, Grok's remarks are quite restrained.
Rosa: In the crisis of information trust, can encryption technology reconstruct a trusted verification mechanism?
Anatoly: It is more likely to return to the prediction market (Polymarket). Although there is room for manipulation, checks and balances will be formed under the scale effect.
Rosa: What do you think of Sequoia Capital partner Shawn Maguire being labeled an "Islamist" for his recent comments on the Mandani project?
Anatoly: Although I don't always agree with Shawn's views, and sometimes he even seems aggressive, I support the principle of freedom of speech. The Internet should accommodate different voices. People can oppose his views, but they should not deprive him of the right to speak.
Rosa: Why did Shawn Maguire choose controversial remarks rather than professional channels to gain attention?
Anatoly: This phenomenon is essentially the same as the dilemma of Internet information quality: people with high cognition often pursue maximum information absorption and form judgments on everything, while algorithms will continue to push content that reinforces existing biases to maintain user stickiness.
For example, if a user determines that Curry's shooting is inefficient, the system will loop his missed shots. When individuals are immersed in such information cocoons for a long time, it is inevitable that cognition is out of touch with reality.
Rosa: What is the attitude of crypto-punks towards the current industry ecology? Are they furious, or are they too happy to care about other things?
Anatoly: This is an interesting question. Those truly angry punks have left. Just like no one remembers the open Internet before Facebook, when those who stick to their ideals withdraw, their voices will disappear.
