In this exciting discussion, Jesse Pollack, the Founder of Base, shares insights on fostering a thriving crypto economy. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, talks about revolutionizing the dollar with USDC. Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of Solana, emphasizes resilience in the face of challenges like the FTX collapse. Stani Kulechove discusses the importance of community engagement for success in DeFi. The founders delve into balancing established strategies with innovation and the vital role of adaptability and user feedback in product development.

Ethereum Researcher Justin Drake and Solana's Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko debate Ethereum vs. Solana, discussing design decisions, global shared state, data availability, blockchain architecture, block building strategies, financial aspects, economic security, and transaction throughput trade-offs in a spicy and informative episode.

In this podcast, Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, discusses blockchain architectures, scalability, company-building, and engineering hiring. They explore the differences between Ethereum's roll-up vision and a permissionless system, the demand for block space, attracting developers, leadership in the crypto space, and predictions for crypto adoption. Builders are encouraged to focus on product market fit and pursue innovative ideas.

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 (!). Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Huntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressStatsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24More Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered:Anatoly's background as a wireless engineer at Qualcomm, and how it led to a fundamental discovery of how to improve crypto system scalabilitySolana'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" itStarting Solana during the 2017-18 crypto winter, and how it forced them to focus just on building and shipping versus raising and posturingBootstrapping adoption with the mining community (Solana's "true believers") and the early and ardent support they providedWhere Solana falls on the Vitalik "Scalability - Security - Decentralization" trilemma, and why Solana's superpower of maintaining composability is so attractiveLinks:Solana: https://solana.comSolana on Twitter: https://twitter.com/solanaSolana Hackathon submissions: https://airtable.com/shriNT26cAZeDJagn/tbl5fZ4E1BBbVAttWFTX: https://ftx.usAudius: https://audius.co 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.

This week features Zooko Wilcox, founder of Electric Coin Co. and key player behind Zcash, and Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana with a focus on blockchain scalability and privacy. They dive into Zcash's innovative zero-knowledge proofs that enhance transaction confidentiality. The duo discusses the cryptocurrency's evolving role in financial systems, challenges in scalability, and the importance of maintaining user anonymity. They also explore the future of digital currencies and privacy, highlighting Zcash’s potential impact.

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, discusses the creation of the Solana Phone. Topics include the Solana Proof-of-History algorithm, hardware scalability, a self-custody phone, instant bank accounts, challenging Google and Apple, the potential impact of a 1% market share, and building a parallel society.

Anatoly Yakovenko joins the podcast to discuss Solana's design for ever-increasing bandwidth and compute. They cover Solana's core thesis, the flaws of L2s, favorite applications, decentralization, and more! Topics include scalability, hardware improvements, parallel execution, Solana's design moat, and the compressed NFT opportunity.

In this podcast, the founder of Solana and the head of strategy at Solana Foundation discuss the Solana Breakpoint event, Solana vs. Ethereum, the Solana community, and upcoming releases/products. They also explore the 'Cult of Anatoly,' Firedancer protocol upgrade, Solana 2.0, and Solana governance.

Anatoly Yakovenko, a cryptocurrency expert, joins the show to discuss Solana's end game. The topics covered include finding crypto's perfect use case, disrupting legacy financial rails, challenges of building through a bear market, crypto's killer use case, stablecoins, the future of Solana, waves of adoption in crypto, building community in Solana, and what Solana has learnt from Ethereum.

✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode: https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-anatoly-solana  ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode: https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint  ------ In today’s episode, we have the creator of Solana and the Co-founder of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko. We brought on Anatoly to ask: is Solana going to make it? Price is down. A major public backer…SBF is down for the count…will Solana make it? Will it survive the bear market? Anatoly shares his thoughts. In addition, he also shares the full Solana story, back to its earliest inflection points all the way to the current state of Solana today. ------ 📣 MetaMask Learn https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow  ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  ------ Topics Covered 0:00 Intro 7:58 2022 & 2023 10:05 Solana Origins 14:40 Passage of Time as Data 25:30 Bandwidth Trade-offs 29:29 SOL as Money? 32:04 Security 36:24 Continuing the Solana Story 44:10 Early Day Solana Vibes 48:20 Solana Growth Acceleration 51:31 2021 Solana Price 53:12 The Crypto VC Narrative 54:37 Solana Haters 59:55 FTX & SBF 1:07:16 Solana Critique 1:09:35 Cultural Debt 1:14:46 The State of the Solana Community 1:19:37 The Future of Solana 1:24:36 Solana VM 1:26:39 Will Solana Make It? 1:31:15 Final Solana Questions Closing & Disclaimers ------ Resources: Anatoly https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko  Firedancer https://jumpcrypto.com/firedancer/  ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures