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Home»ALTCOIN NEWS»Is what Snowden said about Solana correct? How centralized is the network?
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Is what Snowden said about Solana correct? How centralized is the network?

By Crypto FlexsOctober 4, 20242 Mins Read
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Is what Snowden said about Solana correct? How centralized is the network?
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  • Edward Snowden raised concerns about Solana.
  • Solana developers defend the network.
  • Is Solana really centralized?

Solana has been under scrutiny for centralization for several years. These issues have recently received renewed attention following criticism from digital privacy advocate Edward Snowden. Speaking at the Token2049 conference in Singapore on Wednesday October 2nd, he raised serious concerns about Solana.

Snowden argued that the focus on speed and low transaction costs undermines decentralization, making it vulnerable to control by authoritarian regimes. These comments sparked discussion about how centralized and vulnerable Solana is.

Is Solana centralized?

Snowden’s criticism sparked debate about Solana’s centralization and vulnerability to external entities. Mert Mumtaz, one of Solana’s developers, asked Snowden to identify the vulnerability. “Please show me which vector you will use to back up the data,” he wrote.

Snowden seems to think Solana is centralized. On the other hand, the data to be backed up is 0.

I challenge anyone to show me the exact attack vectors that would allow a single entity to exert loss of funds or long-term power over a network.

Use real data to show us how you will put it down… pic.twitter.com/xAfy2pL46L

— Because | Helius.dev (@0xMert_) October 2, 2024

Mumtaz acknowledged that Solana may be less decentralized than Ethereum, but questioned its vulnerabilities. He said Solana’s validators are spread across multiple regions, making it difficult for any government to control the network. However, many in the cryptocurrency community disagreed.

Snowden: Solana is centralized

Fact Check: Mostly True ✅

Sol prefers 10GBit/s upload. <1% have this. A data center chain. Sol has 1 full client and no specifications. It's more of an app than a protocol. Validators pay a lot of money to vote. Approximately $1.2 million in equity will break even in ~2.5 years. Centralized! pic.twitter.com/tjgewoY6Dz

— Ryan Berckmans ryanb.eth (@ryanberckmans) October 2, 2024

Critics have highlighted the “high hardware and bandwidth requirements” to run Solana validators. “As far as I know, there is not a single person who can run a validator from home. “This is the attack vector.” @phyrooo explained X. Another developer emphasized that a validator would need at least $1.2 million in staked assets to break even on operations.

Reasons for concern about concentration of validators

Running a validator on Solana requires expensive hardware and powerful internet, which are inaccessible to regular users. This results in a small number of validators dominating the network. Worse, small validators rely on grants from the Solana Foundation, further exacerbating centralization.

The high level of concentration exposes Solana to regulatory pressure from governments. Additionally, ownership of staked SOL is also centralized, even if validators move their hardware to different regions. One user @Evan_ss6 pointed out how heavily staked SOL is, under the control of its founders and venture capital investors.

Snowden is right. Solana is centralized.

The main reason is equity concentration. A single key can be rotated to different regions, but this does not change the ultimate underlying concentrated ownership of the founder/SF/early VC.

stress pic.twitter.com/wViFm9yoHj

— Evans6 (@Evan_ss6) October 2, 2024

All of these issues point to the fact that Solana may be vulnerable to regulatory crackdowns. As was the case with Telegram, the CEO’s arrest led to changes to the app’s policies. Solana is not currently under pressure from regulators to censor or reverse transactions, but this could be a risk going forward.

On the flipside

  • Despite concerns about centralization, Solana is one of the fastest-growing DeFi ecosystems. In particular, the transaction value is often Even surpasses Ethereum.
  • Solana is evolving rapidly, so the current infrastructure may change soon.

Why This Matters

The debate over Solana’s centralization is tied to a fundamental tenet of blockchain technology: that centralization can make a network more vulnerable to attacks or regulatory pressures.

Read more about the Solana centralization debate:
Solana Network: Is Solana really decentralized?

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