{"id":25618,"date":"2025-07-28T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T07:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/solana-co-founder-labels-memecoins-and-nfts-as-digital-slop\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T10:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T07:33:09","slug":"solana-co-founder-labels-memecoins-and-nfts-as-digital-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/solana-co-founder-labels-memecoins-and-nfts-as-digital-slop\/","title":{"rendered":"Solana Co-Founder Labels Memecoins and NFTs as &#8216;Digital Slop&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, engaged in a debate with Base creator Jesse Pollak regarding the fundamental value of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/meme-tokens-from-joke-to-scam\">memecoins<\/a> and NFTs. Their discussion captured the attention of the cryptocurrency community.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I\u2019ve said this for years. Memecoins and NFTs are digital slop and have no intrinsic value. Like a mobile game loot box. People spend $150b a year on mobile gaming.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 toly \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@aeyakovenko) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aeyakovenko\/status\/1949548737208181137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve been saying for years that memecoins and NFTs are digital slop without real value,&#8221; Yakovenko wrote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Solana co-founder compared these assets to <span data-descr=\"in-game virtual rewards\" class=\"old_tooltip\">loot boxes<\/span> in mobile games, which generate revenue for developers but are often criticized for exploiting users. According to him, the value of &#8220;funny coins&#8221; and non-fungible tokens is driven solely by market demand.<\/p>\n<p>Pollak countered, emphasizing that their value lies in the content itself. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">the content itself is valuable. ads are a way to monetize that value. but the content itself is valuable. just like a painting is fundamentally valuable, regardless of whether you charge people at the museum to see it.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 jesse.base.eth (@jessepollak) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jessepollak\/status\/1949541921145192778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;The content itself is valuable. Just like a painting in a museum, for which people pay to view,&#8221; stated the Base creator.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community Reaction<\/h2>\n<p>Users <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/0xCaps\/status\/1949571282854674532\">criticized<\/a> the statements of the Solana co-founder, accusing him of a dismissive attitude towards his own community. Crypto enthusiast Karbon called Yakovenko&#8217;s stance on &#8220;funny coins&#8221; hypocritical.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#8217;m not a huge fan of how Vitalik handled memecoins (nuking them in 1 clip anytime someone sent them to his wallet) but I find Toly&#8217;s approach much more distasteful, actively promoting them constantly while believing they&#8217;re worthless <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bl64hKZp4b\">https:\/\/t.co\/bl64hKZp4b<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 karbon \ud83d\udc3a\ud83e\udd8a (@basedkarbon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/basedkarbon\/status\/1949663406958563469?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 28, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not particularly fond of how Vitalik deals with memecoins (simply destroying tokens in one click when someone sends them to his wallet). But I find Toly [Yakovenko]&#8217;s approach much less acceptable \u2013 he constantly promotes these coins while believing they&#8217;re worthless,&#8221; he wrote. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Memecoins as the Foundation of Solana&#8217;s Economy<\/h2>\n<p>During the debate with Pollak, Yakovenko acknowledged that Solana would not have achieved its current success without &#8220;funny coins.&#8221; Two of the largest platforms for generating memecoins, LetsBonk and Pump.fun, operate on this network and actively <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/letsbonk-surpasses-pump-fun-in-market-share\">compete<\/a> for leadership in the sector.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theblock.co\/data\/decentralized-finance\/launchpads\/tokens-launched-on-solana-launchpads-daily\/embed\" title=\"Tokens Launched On Solana Launchpads (Daily)\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Funny coins&#8221; bring significant profit to Solana. According to Syndica, in June they accounted for 62% of all revenue from <span data-descr=\"decentralized applications\" class=\"old_tooltip\">dapps<\/span> on the network.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645-1024x576.png\" alt=\"image1\" class=\"wp-image-262742\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645-1536x864.png 1536w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/image1-645.png 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.syndica.io\/deep-dive-solana-dapps-revenue-june-2025\/\">Syndica<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the first half of 2025, the project earned $1.6 billion thanks to memecoins. Platforms Pump.fun and LetsBonk played a significant role in this. <\/p>\n<p>On July 24, the Solana network <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/solana-expands-block-computation-limit-by-20\">increased<\/a> block capacity by 20% to 60 million compute units (CU). Following the news, the price of SOL exceeded $200.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs, engaged in a debate with Base creator Jesse Pollak regarding the fundamental value of memecoins and NFTs. Their discussion captured the attention of the cryptocurrency community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1161,1213,1138,1159],"class_list":["post-25618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-memes","tag-nft","tag-opinions","tag-solana-sol"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"97","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}