‘I am ashamed’ — Solana CEO breaks silence over controversial ad backlash

9 hours ago 20

The Solana Labs CEO says the arguable advertisement was “gnawing astatine [his] soul“ and promises Solana volition enactment retired of “cultural wars.”

‘I americium  ashamed’ — Solana CEO breaks soundlessness  implicit    arguable  advertisement  backlash

Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko has breached his soundlessness implicit the “America Is Back — Time to Accelerate” advertisement, which blended American patriotism and tech innovation with governmental messaging astir sex identity.

“The advertisement was bad, and it’s inactive gnawing astatine my soul,” Yakovenko said successful a March 19 X station aft receiving immense backlash implicit the arguable ad. 

“I americium ashamed I downplayed it alternatively of conscionable calling it what it is - mean and punching down connected a marginalized group.”

Yakovenko praised those successful the Solana ecosystem who called retired the “mess” that was posted connected Solana’s X account, which accumulated astir 1.2 cardinal views and 1,300 comments earlier it was deleted astir 9 hours later.

Yakovenko said helium volition usage the learning acquisition to guarantee Solana stays focused connected open-source bundle improvement and decentralization portion staying “out of taste wars.”

Source: Anatoly Yakovenko

Solana hasn’t made an authoritative remark connected the matter, though its X relationship reshared Yakovenko’s station to its 3.3 cardinal followers.

Cointelegraph besides reached retired to the Solana Foundation soon aft the advertisement was taken down but didn’t person a response.

The two-and-a-half-minute advertisement for the Solana Accelerate league showcased a antheral acting arsenic America successful a therapy league who said helium was having thoughts “about innovation” specified arsenic crypto.

The therapist responded that helium should alternatively bash “something much productive, similar coming up with a caller gender” and aboriginal said the antheral should “focus connected pronouns.”

The antheral snapped back, stating that helium wanted “to invent technologies, not genders.”

Took them 9 hours to delete it.

Also each the large players successful the Solana ecosystem abruptly delete their tweets promoting/supporting the advertisement and RT’d and liked takes astir it being bad.

They approved this, supported it and celebrated it.

They rolled it backmost due to the fact that it hurt… pic.twitter.com/kPMERDpTcn

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) March 18, 2025

The now-deleted advertisement came 9 days aft Solana’s X relationship posted: “Solana is for everyone.”

Related: Solana rallies 8% arsenic crypto markets retrieve — Is determination country for much SOL upside?

Cinneamhain Ventures spouse Adam Cochran pointed retired that transgender people lend to open-source bundle and cryptography successful an “insanely disproportionate amount.”

A GitHub survey from 2017 found that of the 5,500 randomly selected open-source developers, 1% were transgender, and different 1% were non-binary.

Most information obtained during 2017 and 2018 suggest that transgender and non-binary radical combined represented determination betwixt 0.1% and 0.6% of the population.

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