United States whistleblower and privacy activist Edward Snowden has criticized major blockchain Solana (SOL) for being centralized.
Talking at the crypto conference Token2049 in Singapore, Snowden cited Solana as an example of prioritizing speed, cost-effectiveness and efficiency over decentralization. He said:
“A lot of people—and I don’t want to name names, but Solana—are taking good ideas and they’re just going, ‘Well, what if we just centralized everything? It’ll be faster, it’ll be more efficient, [and] it’ll be cheaper.’”
Why decentralization matters
SNOWDEN: Solana is centralised
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— Radar (@RadarHits) October 2, 2024
Snowden explained that “anything significant” built on the Solana network could easily be disrupted if nation-states took action against it. Decentralization is largely seen as the reason why even cryptocurrency-based services that are deemed illegal remain in operation.
A good example is Tornado Cash, a decentralized cryptocurrency mixer that prevents crypto tracking. Back in 2022, the United States Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control added Tornado Cash to its sanctioned entity list.
Despite that, according to Flipside Crypto data, in the first six months of 2024, more than $1.9 billion has been deposited into Tornado Cash. Sanctions or not, the United States has been largely powerless in preventing the continued use of the service.
Snowden made his remarks at the conference while participating in it online. He described Solana as an ecosystem largely succeeding thanks to “memecoins and scams,” that was not built with an “adversarial approach” in mind.
Mert Mumtaz — co-founder and CEO of Solana infrastructure firm Helius Labs — did not agree. He wrote:
“Snowden seems to think Solana is centralized — while giving 0 data to back it up. I challenge anyone to show me the precise attack vector that would let a single entity exercise a loss of funds, or prolonged power over the network.”
The report follows Snowden voicing his support for Bitcoin in the wake of a significant market disruption caused by a technical glitch on the New York Stock Exchange.
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