Snowden calls Solana a centralized chain used for ‘meme coins and scams’

Key Takeaways

• Snowden criticizes Solana for centralization, impacting its blockchain integrity.
• Despite criticism, Solana's SOL token price increased by 10% over the past month.

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Edward Snowden, the former NSA whistleblower, openly criticized the Solana blockchain network for its centralization. Speaking at the Token2049 conference via video link, Snowden expressed concerns about Solana’s operational model, describing it as a system vulnerable to manipulation by nation-states and bad actors due to its centralized structure.

Snowden emphasized that while Solana boasts technological advantages in terms of speed and efficiency, these come at the cost of decentralization.

“Solana is taking good ideas and going, ‘What if we just centralized everything? It’ll be faster, more efficient, cheaper… and yeah, nobody is using it except for meme coins and scams,” Snowden remarked.

His critique highlighted the platform’s focus on performance over the foundational blockchain principle of decentralization, sparking heated debate within the crypto community. The debate over Solana’s centralization is not new. Crypto advocates have previously pointed to the platform’s governance structure as overly centralized.

More recently, a prominent Cardano supporter provided evidence that over 73% of Solana validators comply with KYC and AML requirements. These validators receive subsidies from Solana’s Stake-o-matic tool, making the network resemble a more traditional financial institution than a decentralized blockchain.

Despite these concerns, Solana’s native token, SOL, has seen substantial growth, with its trade price reaching $145 at the time of writing, marking a 10% increase over the past 30 days.

Snowden’s criticism comes at a time when Solana has been gaining significant attention for its low transaction costs and high processing speed. Industry analysts, including those from VanEck, have forecasted that Solana’s market value could surge due to its superior transaction efficiency, predicting a rise in SOL’s price to $330.

According to VanEck, Solana’s ability to process thousands of transactions per second—far exceeding Ethereum’s—positions it as a strong contender in the DeFi and payments space.

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