In brief
- Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko dismissed meme coins and NFTs as “digital slop,” in a discussion with Coinbase’s Jesse Pollak.
- Pollak defended platforms like Zora, calling content “incredibly valuable” and coins “the most powerful technology” for enabling value transfer to creators.
- Despite Yakovenko’s criticism, Solana remains deeply tied to meme coin activity, with launchpad Pump.fun responsible for nearly 12 million tokens and $776 million in revenue.
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko lit up Crypto Twitter over the weekend, dismissing meme coins and NFTs “digital slop” even as the Layer-1 blockchain profits heavily from meme-driven activity.
“I’ve said this for years. Memecoins and NFTs are digital slop and have no intrinsic value,” Yakovenko tweeted on Sunday. In a back-and-forth with Base creator Jesse Pollak, Yakovenko compared the digital assets to loot boxes in free-to-play games.
I’ve said this for years. Memecoins and NFTs are digital slop and have no intrinsic value. Like a mobile game loot box. People spend $150b a year on mobile gaming.
— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) July 27, 2025
Pollak was responding to critics comparing creator coins minted on on-chain social protocol Zora to anonymous meme coins launched on Solana-based meme coin launchpad Pump.fun.
“Content is valuable. Creators are valuable,” Pollak wrote. “That’s why there are trillions of dollars of business value created around them.”
“The idea that assets coming out of pump fun and zora are equivalent is the logical fallacy..not all coins are the same, fundamentals matter,… Pollak said.
But Yakovenko dismissed them as viral attention cycles where buyers hope to “sell after it’s gone viral and before the virality dies down.”
Pollak pushed back that content is “incredibly valuable” and tokens represent “the most powerful technology” to enable value flow for creators.
Those who think otherwise, he said, are free to believe “content is worth zero.”
Solana and meme coins
Despite Yakovenko’s criticism of meme coins, the blockchain remains heavily dependent on the tokens.
Solana has seen a surge in trading volume due to platforms such as Pump.fun, the launchpad responsible for the debut of nearly 12 million tokens and over $776 million in revenue since its launch in 2024, as per Dune Analytics data.
NFTs and meme coins are “short term trends,” Arjun Vijay, founder of crypto exchange Giottus, told Decrypt. “It can be a good channel to drive traffic revenue to the blockchain for a short period but it may not be sustainable.”
“Long term growth comes from attracting long term capital in the form of TVL and long term traction,” Vijay added, noting that while Solana has proven its technical capabilities, sustainable adoption requires more than speculative trading.
As Vijay stressed long-term value, others warned against losing meme-driven momentum.
If Solana attempts to distance itself from meme coins and NFTs, it risks “disconnecting from the source of the energy that brought its ecosystem back to life,” Ray Youssef, CEO of crypto marketplace NoOnes, told Decrypt.
He cautioned that sidelining meme coins risks turning Solana into “a sterile database and ghost town of unrealized potential,” adding that sustainable value requires active user engagement with the chain’s technology.
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