Solana co-founder: Memecoins intuitively onboard users

Solana co-founder Raj Gokal told Consensus attendees that user demand drives memecoins’ popularity, offering a fun way to attract new participants.

Solana (SOL) has become the go-to blockchain for memecoins speculation. While the increased on-chain activity has been a boon to SOL prices, it has also generated debates about the chain’s position in the blockchain ecosystem. 

CoinGecko reported Solana is the fastest-chain of the lot, processing thousands to millions of memecoin transactions. 

On the other hand, developers have rugged several users through SOL memecoins, and celebrities are now backing memetic projects, adding further fuel to the craze. “We didn’t do anything to make that happen. It’s just a thing to do” said Gokal on the final day of Consensus 2024. 

Solana targets grass root adoption with Saga Mobile

According to Gokal, the boom of mobile crypto apps like StepN in 2021/2021 was a precursor for the Saga Mobile device. Placing blockchain operability and crypto utility in users’ hands offered a new way to push mass adoption, the founder explained. 

Saga Mobile kicked off to lackluster sales. However, crypto’s resurgence last year coupled with the ongoing memecoin mania bolstered sales beyond 150,000 units. Gokal said the next device is in development and expected to launch next year.

New validator set to 1000x transaction capacity

Gokal confirmed work on a second validator client set dubbed Fire Dancer. The initiative is supposed to increase Solana’s transaction throughput up to 1,000 times, boosting speeds to 5,000 – 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). 

Currently, Solana boasts as high as 1,053 TPS, but its theoretical speed may reach 65,000 TPS with scaling and upgrades. The team behind staking protocol Jito is also developing a third validator set focused on Maximal Extractable Value commonly known as MEV.