Anatoly Yakovenko, Founder and CEO of Solana Labs, shares his journey from Qualcomm's wireless engineering to creating one of crypto's fastest-growing blockchains. He discusses Solana's scaling capabilities, distinguishing it from Ethereum, and emphasizes its unique architectural innovations. Yakovenko also reflects on launching the project during the 2017-18 crypto winter, the importance of community support, and the transformative potential of decentralized finance and music on Solana. His insights into building a resilient protocol shed light on the future of blockchain technology.
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Solana's Bootstrapped Beginning
Solana started in the 2017-18 crypto winter, making fundraising difficult.
Initial funding only covered two years, forcing a focus on building and shipping.
insights INSIGHT
Scalability Limits of Proof of Work
Proof of Work blockchains, like Bitcoin, are inherently limited in scalability due to their need for full data verification from scratch by each node.
This limitation is linked to their thermodynamic security and store-of-value properties.
insights INSIGHT
Settlement vs. Execution Layers
Settlement layers, like Bitcoin, finalize transactions, while execution layers handle trading and market operations.
Solana aims to be a high-speed execution layer, unlike the slower settlement layer of Bitcoin.
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The City and the Stars is set in a future where Earth's oceans have evaporated and humanity has retreated to the city of Diaspar. The story follows Alvin, a 'Unique' individual without past memories, as he seeks to uncover the truth about his world and humanity's history. His journey leads to the discovery of another city, Lys, and ultimately transforms the understanding of Diaspar's citizens about their place in the universe.
We sit down with the hottest new protocol layer in crypto today: Solana, and its cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko, who is the CEO of Solana Labs. If you listened to our Ethereum episode or follow crypto even at a cursory level, you've likely heard of Solana and its ability to scale transactions thousands of times higher than Ethereum. And, unlike other so-called "ETH killers", Solana is doing so in production today with large and real applications. We dive into the project's history coming out of the 2017-18 crypto winter, how it works and what's ahead now that they've recently raised $314m (yes that is Pi $million) from a16z and Polychain Capital, with their native SOL tokens currently trading at a market cap around $10B (!).
Anatoly's background as a wireless engineer at Qualcomm, and how it led to a fundamental discovery of how to improve crypto system scalability
Solana's role in the crypto protocol ecosystem and why there's a need for it (and why it can and will exist) alongside Ethereum versus "killing" it
Starting Solana during the 2017-18 crypto winter, and how it forced them to focus just on building and shipping versus raising and posturing
Bootstrapping adoption with the mining community (Solana's "true believers") and the early and ardent support they provided
Where Solana falls on the Vitalik "Scalability - Security - Decentralization" trilemma, and why Solana's superpower of maintaining composability is so attractive
Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
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