Snowden calls Solana a centralized chain used for “meme coins and scams”

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

Edward Snowden – “Solana is centralized”pic.twitter.com/3NZZPyRLm3

— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDailyio) October 2, 2024

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

“Solana takes good ideas and says, ‘What if we centralize everything? It will be faster, more efficient, cheaper… and yes, no one uses it except meme coins and scams,” Snowden noted.

His criticism highlighted the platform’s focus on performance over the underlying blockchain principle of decentralization, sparking heated debate within the crypto community. The debate over the centralization of Solana is not new. Crypto advocates have previously indicated that the platform’s governance structure is 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 more like a traditional financial institution than a decentralized blockchain.

Despite these concerns, Solana’s native token SOL has seen substantial growth, with its trading 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 gained significant attention for its low transaction costs and high processing speed. Industry analysts, including those at VanEck, have forecasted that Solana’s market value could increase due to its superior trading efficiency, predicting an increase in the SOL price to $330.

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

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