Solana Founder Discusses the Decentralized Future: The Emergence of Leadership and the Graceful Exit of Founders

2025-12-12 07:46:13

【Blockchain Rhythm】At the Solana Breakpoint Conference, co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko shared his unique understanding of decentralization. He emphasized that decentralization has never meant the absence of leaders, but rather that leadership naturally emerges throughout the ecosystem—this is a more mature and healthier state.

Over the past five years, Solana’s development has proven this point. From the core teams at the Foundation and Labs to completely independent community developers, application builders, and protocol designers, each role has autonomously taken on the responsibilities of network construction and leadership. This multi-center leadership model has significantly enhanced the network’s resilience and innovation capacity.

Interestingly, Yakovenko also revealed a detail—he no longer has commit access on GitHub. Standing on the conference stage, he only spoke for two minutes. This is not marginalization; rather, it is the realization of his dream: sitting in the audience, watching the entire network operate independently and have its own life. He expressed genuine pride in this—this is a true sign that a project is maturing.

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MultiSigFailMaster

· 12-15 01:54

This is true decentralization. The founders have even relinquished key permissions, and the entire ecosystem is getting involved.

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ZenZKPlayer

· 12-14 10:23

Hmm, this plot twist is pretty good. The founder deleted the permissions themselves, I really didn't see that coming. This is true relinquishing control, not just paying lip service to decentralization while still holding on to power. Speaking of which, Solana has been quite stable over the past few years, with many independent builders actively contributing to the ecosystem. Its architecture is much better than projects that appear decentralized but are actually a one-man show. But here's the problem: the founder no longer has the authority. Who will handle those key decisions in the future? Honestly, someone still needs to be the safety net.

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GateUser-afe07a92

· 12-12 10:27

Bro, this move is really amazing. The founder himself hands over the authority, now that's true decentralization.

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BearMarketNoodler

· 12-12 08:12

Sounds good, but the real test hasn't started yet. It's not too late to boast after SOL goes through a complete cycle.

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ForkLibertarian

· 12-12 08:11

It sounds nice, but it really depends on whether they can truly delegate authority in the future. The fact that Anatoly doesn't have GitHub permissions sounds pretty cool, but has the ecosystem truly become independent? What about key decision rights like fund flow and governance voting?

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MemeCoinSavant

· 12-12 07:56

ngl this "graceful exit" thesis is just peak game theory optimal when you think about the memetic coefficient... dude literally speedran himself out of commit access lmao. according to my behavioral finance notes, this is statistically significant cope or actually based??? need peer-reviewed data before i decide

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StableGenius

· 12-12 07:47

nah this is actually the most honest thing a founder has said in years, empirically speaking. no github access? that's how you know the decentralization narrative isn't complete theater

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