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- Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko says the chain must continue evolving to remain useful.
- Comments follow Ethereum’s “walkaway test” debate and new traction in tokenized real-world assets.
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has stated that the Solana network must never stop evolving, or it will risk dying. He emphasized that the protocol must continuously adapt to meet the needs of its developers and users, even if those changes do not always come from the core teams like Anza, Labs, or the Foundation.
Yakovenko made the comments in response to a wider community discussion triggered by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Buterin recently said that Ethereum must reach a point where it can “ossify,” meaning it can stop changing without losing value. He added that Ethereum should pass the “walkaway test,” which means the protocol must remain useful and secure even if active development slows or stops entirely. This aligns with Ethereum’s upcoming 2026 upgrades, as we previously covered, which focus on privacy, decentralization, and user self-sovereignty.
I actually think fairly differently on this. Solana needs to never stop iterating. It shouldn’t depend on any single group or individual to do so, but if it ever stops changing to fit the needs of its devs and users, it will die.
It needs to be so materially useful to humans… https://t.co/itqr1b5az4
— toly 🇺🇸 (@toly) January 17, 2026
However, Yakovenko has pushed back against this idea. He said that for Solana to remain valuable, it must be constantly useful to developers. Those developers should generate enough value from their apps on Solana to reinvest in protocol improvements. These upgrades, he said, must solve real problems faced by users or builders.
He also suggested that large language models (LLMs) might eventually write and verify protocol upgrade proposals. In that world, the cost of generating a new SIMD proposal might be covered by a vote that funds GPU usage. While the comment was partly hypothetical, it reflects Yakovenko’s belief that the process of improvement must continue, even in a decentralized setting.
Solana’s Protocol Debate Comes Amid RWA Growth
The exchange of ideas between Ethereum and Solana leaders comes as both networks grow in different directions. As Ethereum is looking into ossification, Solana is expanding its transaction capacity and ecosystem tools. According to CNF, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on Solana reached $873.3 million at the start of 2026.
Yakovenko has explained that saying “no” to most change proposals is normal, but progress must not stall. If the network stops changing in response to user needs, he said, it could lose its relevance.
The broader community echoed these concerns. Sei co-founder Jayendra Jog noted that change moves more slowly when no core group leads upgrades. He compared it to Bitcoin, where new proposals take years to pass due to internal debates. Yakovenko disagreed, saying technical specs are not the issue. Instead, he believes that coordination and testnet validation are the true hurdles, and AI could streamline both in the future.
If it’s not anza or labs or fd leading that upgrade, it’s going to move extremely slowly – in essence ossifying
FWIW Bitcoin still introduces new changes, they just take years to go through the community’s internal politics
— Jay ($/acc) (@jayendra_jog) January 17, 2026
Yakovenko concluded that the network’s evolution must always be focused on developer and user needs. He said solving every issue is not required, but solving the right ones keeps the protocol alive.
However, Solana’s price has seen its own share of problems recently after the recent trade war between the United States and the EU. With Bitcoin falling below $92,000, SOL price has followed the trend, trading at $133.71, a 6% decline from the resistance level.
