- Recently, there has been increased concern about memecoins harming the cryptocurrency sector.
- Solana co-founder Raj Gokal responds with a playful jab.
- However, Solana’s reaction to Gokal comes with a twist.
Despite its admitted lack of further usefulness, Memecoin has emerged as one of the best-performing subsectors of the cryptocurrency industry in recent times. ‘For memes.’ The asset class confidently outperformed the leading tokens in terms of performance, comfortably posting gains of over 10x and enticing investors to participate in hopes of quick profits.
As Memecoin gained traction, many industry leaders have expressed concerns about the asset class’s impact on the cryptocurrency’s long-term vision, a sentiment shared that has alienated developers. On the other hand, Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana, argues differently.
Solana’s Raj Gokal punched the bag.
While industry leaders are reeling from the rise of memecoins, Solana’s Raj Gokal has stepped into the ring to combat recent concerns about the subsector crowding out developers.
Ridiculing an earlier post by A16z CTO Eddy Lazzarin, Solana’s Raj Gokal didn’t hold back. Gokal, who shared a photo of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin wearing a fur costume, retorted: “Could you please remind me about the “Serious Builder” who started all this work?
Solana’s co-founder dismissed the idea that memecoins are crowding out serious developers. According to him, anyone who is dissatisfied with the way the younger generation uses permissionless systems for fun is not a good fit for the cryptocurrency industry.
But Gokal’s defense has a twist, especially considering Solana’s recent racist memecoin infection.
Solana: Is this a hub for racist memecoins?
Solana has recently emerged as a bustling hub for memecoins, with many major tokens such as Dogwifhat and BOME being hosted on the network. Experts suggest that much of SOL’s success may be due to the increasing number of memecoin traders flocking to the protocol, especially considering that more than 20,000 new coins are minted every day.
However, while Solana’s network growth this year exploded thanks to memecoins, it took a darker turn due to the proliferation of narrow-minded memecoins. Slanderous coin quotes and stereotypical images have become painfully common on the Solana DEX, highlighting the double-edged sword of decentralized principles such as censorship resistance and permissionlessness.
While Gokal argues that young people should be allowed to ‘have fun’, Austin Federa, head of strategy at the Solana Foundation, offered an interesting perspective on the issue of racist memecoins at a recent conference. He suggested that wallet developers implement a “blocklist” feature to allow users to filter out tokens containing offensive language.
Making an analogy to the internet, Federa explained, “It's unreasonable to expect an internet service provider (ISP) to filter out content that some might find offensive, he said. After all, the internet, like crypto, operates on a largely permissionless basis.”
"No one expects Verizon to have a legal obligation to prevent a phishing email from landing in your inbox or to prevent you from accessing something that is potentially racist material," he said.
Federa emphasized that Solana is all at the application level. It’s your wallet that makes the decisions about what content you want to display and what you want to display.
On the flipside
- The memecoin craze has brought technical strain to the Solana blockchain. The influx of large transactions involving meme coins has led to network congestion, resulting in higher transaction failure rates.
- ZachXBT, a well-known blockchain researcher, discovered at least 12 Solana-based memecoins abandoned over the past month. The project raised about $26.7 million from investors before the developer secured funding.
Why This Matters
While it is true that memecoins could shape the way the public perceives the cryptocurrency industry, Raj Gokal offers an interesting perspective on blockchain technology and the decentralized principles of cryptocurrencies.
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