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Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko is facing backlash from the crypto community over his comments about meme coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Yakovenko made these remarks against these tokens despite his network being home to most of the top meme coins by market capitalization.
Crypto Community Reacts To Solana Founder’s Comments
The crypto community criticized Anatoly Yakovenko following his X post, in which he described meme coins and NFTs as “digital slop” and ones that have no intrinsic value. The Solana founder added that, like a mobile game loot box, people spend $150 billion a year on mobile gaming, in reference to his ideology about meme coins and NFTs.
Crypto marketer Anastasiia Bobeshko described the Solana founder’s comments as being funny, considering the traction that memes have brought into the Solana ecosystem. She further noted that the network made $1.6 billion in the first half of 2025 thanks to these meme coins. Another member of the crypto community, Ethereum developer Hanniabu, had earlier echoed a similar sentiment, suggesting that the network would be nothing without meme coins.
Null, a member of the BONK community, declared that the Solana network would have never been where it is today without meme coins. Yakavenko replied sarcastically, saying, “Absolutely. Without lootboxes, iOS would have negligible revenues for Apple.”
Meanwhile, Crypto community member Art Chick asked the Solana founder if he had a problem with memecoin traders spending $150 billion a year on his chain, but they don’t see it as mobile gaming. Yakovenko responded and alluded to an earlier reply in which he explained that what is important is the need to monitor data, fix problems, use snipers, and work towards sandwich-resistant market implementations.
Difference Between Solana and Base Meme Coins
It is worth noting that the Solana founder’s comment about meme coins stemmed from when he criticized a comment from Base’s lead developer Jesse Pollak, who suggested that Zora meme coins (which are Base tokens) are more valuable than those from Solana’s Pump.fun. In response, Yakovenko asked Pollak if Zora coins have any claims on future cash flows from creators, something which Pump.fun has.
Pollak then clarified that each coin’s value depends on their fundamentals, which is why he believes that not all meme coins are the same. However, the Solana founder doesn’t believe meme coins as a whole have any “intrinsic value.”
Despite his comment, these meme coins, especially the top ones like Fartcoin, BONK, PENGU, and TRUMP, continue to contribute to a significant amount of the daily trading volume on the network. Notably, the Solana price surged to a new all-time high (ATH) of $294 in January, around the time the TRUMP meme coin first launched. SOL witnessed a significant surge in its demand at the time, with investors requiring the altcoin to purchase the meme coin.
At the time of writing, the Solana price is trading at around $183, down over 5% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
