tl;dr
A recent survey of 42 Solana founders revealed high favorability for Solana meme coins and a belief that the blockchain's payment capacities are underrated. The founders expressed distaste for Pump.fun and ambivalence toward the existence of a "Solana cabal." They also shared opinions on other chain...
A recent survey of 42 Solana founders revealed high favorability for Solana meme coins and a belief that the blockchain's payment capacities are underrated. The founders expressed distaste for Pump.fun and ambivalence toward the existence of a "Solana cabal." They also shared opinions on other chains, VC preferences, sandwich attacks, and the influence of Solana's old FTX ties.
The survey highlighted strong consensus on certain topics, including preferences for Base and SUI over other blockchains, views on Solana meme coins, and concerns about sandwich attacks and FTX ties. However, the anonymous nature of the survey prevents predictions about Solana's future trajectory.
Journalist Jack Kubinec conducted the survey, managing to get responses from 42 Solana founders. The identities of these founders remain a mystery, so the survey can’t necessarily predict Solana’s trajectory.
For one thing, these founders overwhelmingly agree on one survey question: if you had to work on a blockchain other than Solana, what would you choose? More than half chose either Base, which recently outpaced Ethereum in user growth, or SUI, with its similar growth and exciting tech development. This was one of the most unanimous responses.
Other strong points of survey consensus include Solana meme coins, which 32 founders called “mostly good for Solana.” Compare this to the alleged “Solana cabal,” which had nearly even responses in every category. In any event, only one founder claimed it was an important concern.
As far as crypto VC goes, the founders thought Multichain was by far the best, while Binance Labs was narrowly the worst. Additionally, they claimed that sandwich attacks are the most pressing concern for Solana’s ecosystem, but only by a slim margin. They also said that even after two years, the company’s old FTX ties are still the biggest threat to its reputation.
The survey also asked these founders which Solana startup they would most and least wish to join. Jito had the highest level of support, while a significant majority wasn’t keen to work with Pump.fun. Additionally, they claimed that AI agents are overrated and that Solana’s usage in payments doesn’t get enough credit. This was a rather surprising finding, as AI agents were among the top crypto trends of 2024.