Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said that in contrast to Vitalik Buterin’s vision of Ethereum as a self-sustaining blockchain, he wants Solana to be a network that is constantly evolving and continually updated as users’ needs change.
“Solana should never stop iterating and should never rely on a single group or individual to do so, but if we stop modifying it to suit the needs of developers and users, Solana will die,” Yakovenko said in a post to X on Saturday.
His remarks were in response to a post by Buterin, who said Ethereum needs to pass a “walk-away test,” meaning it needs to be able to stand on its own without developer influence for decades to come.
sauce: Anatoly Yakovenko
Ethereum and Solana are two of the leading blockchains among layer 1 competitors.
Ethereum is by far the most decentralized smart contract layer 1 blockchain, dominating stablecoin and real-world asset tokenization activities. Solana, on the other hand, is probably one of the faster networks that is more popular for consumer apps and earns more commissions.
But their planned paths to success could not be more different.
Buterin wants to maximize decentralization, privacy, and self-sovereignty on Ethereum, even at the expense of mainstream adoption, and Yakovenko wants Solana to become an evolving ecosystem that introduces new features that adapt to real-world needs.
Proponents of Buterin’s approach argue that adding too many features increases the risk of bugs, security flaws, and unintended consequences of the protocol, while centralization increases the attack surface.
But those who subscribe to Yakovenko’s “adapt or die” philosophy believe that a hands-off approach could lead to slower innovation and be overtaken by faster-moving competitors.
AI could update Solana in the future: Yakovenko
But Yakovenko said updates to the protocol should come from a diverse community of contributors, rather than a small team of developers.
He even pointed out that Solana’s network fees could fund AI-assisted development to create and improve Solana’s codebase.
“You should always expect there to be the next version of Solana,” Yakovenko said.
Ethereum is not yet independent
Meanwhile, Buterin said there is still a lot of work to do before Ethereum can adopt a hands-off approach.
Buterin said quantum-resistant features, a more scalable architecture, and a better block construction model that can withstand the pressures of centralization are the key improvements Ethereum needs to survive the test of time.
