Solana co-founder questions Vitalik's idea: Will blockchain be eliminated if it stops evolving?

January 19 News, regarding whether blockchain underlying protocols should “continue to evolve” or “tend toward rigidity,” the core figures of the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems have recently expressed clear disagreements. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko publicly questioned Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s long-term development philosophy for blockchain, sparking widespread industry discussion.

The spark for the debate originated from Vitalik Buterin’s recent views on Ethereum’s “exit test.” He believes that a mature blockchain protocol should develop to a stage where it can cease frequent upgrades yet still operate stably over the long term, known as “protocol rigidity.” In this state, the protocol’s core value no longer depends on future, yet-to-be-implemented features, but instead possesses reliability similar to infrastructure.

Yakovenko disagrees with this view. He points out that any blockchain protocol that cannot continuously adapt to the real needs of developers and users will ultimately lose practical utility and decline. In his view, continuous iteration is not an option but a prerequisite for survival, provided that the upgrade direction is not monopolized by a single organization.

When discussing Solana’s future path, Yakovenko emphasizes that “having substantial utility for humanity” is key to the network’s long-term existence. He believes that only when enough active developers can earn rewards from on-chain transactions and applications will the ecosystem generate surplus computing power and resources, which in turn feed back into open-source improvements of the protocol itself.

However, he does not advocate for unrestrained upgrades. Yakovenko proposes a “highly selective” evolution model: Solana should reject most unnecessary protocol changes, with upgrades targeting only clear performance bottlenecks or user experience issues, rather than trying to please all voices.

He also predicts that important future versions of Solana may not be led by Solana Labs but by independent contributors outside core teams like Anza and Firedancer. In the long run, the ecosystem might support protocol upgrades through governance voting mechanisms that fund the necessary computational resources and development costs.

In contrast, Vitalik Buterin’s stance leans more toward “infrastructureization.” He believes Ethereum needs to support applications such as finance and governance that require trustlessness or minimal trust. If these applications rely on a bottom-layer protocol that requires continuous vendor upgrades, it becomes difficult to truly trust the system. Therefore, the underlying protocol itself should also possess characteristics similar to “stable tools.”

But Vitalik also emphasizes that “rigidity” does not mean completely stopping development but ensuring that the network can operate securely over the long term without forced upgrades. This philosophical debate essentially reflects deep differences in technical pathways, governance philosophies, and long-term positioning among different public chains.