Solana cannot serve as the backbone of the so-called “new” global financial system, according to Ethereum community member Ryan Berckmans.
Solana (SOL) has moved from its initial “monolithic” approach to recognizing the importance of layer 2 solutions. But Berckmans points out on X that Solana initially presented itself as capable of handling global transactions on a single chain. This was before they rebranded their L2 solutions as “network extensions” rather than recognizing them as L2.
Solana’s gradual recognition of Ethereum’s (ETH) L2 core strategy came after seeing flagship applications build custom L2 application chains on their network.
This shift in perspective became more pronounced when a large Solana development team turned its attention to building an L2 SVM on Ethereum.
Several barriers in front of Solana
Berckmans, who spent eight months as a senior engineer on the Augur project, a prediction platform on the Ethereum blockchain, identifies the obstacles preventing Solana from becoming a global backbone.
First, Solana works with only one production client (agave rust). A global infrastructure requires at least three independent customer chains with a balanced distribution of stakes, he says.
The development of their second client, Firedancer, is facing significant delays due to the lack of appropriate protocol specifications and research community.
Solana’s high bandwidth requirements, which recommend 10 Gbps download, create major centralization risks and practical limitations.
This requirement particularly challenges the notion of a global backbone that should be able to operate anywhere.
The platform’s history of outages and lack of backup capabilities at the protocol level present additional risks.
Unlike Ethereum, Berckmans said Solana does not have the capacity to continue producing blocks when finalization issues arise.
According to Berckmans, economic centralization presents another major concern. With around 98% insider allocation coming from their initial coin offering, compared to Ethereum’s 80% public sale, Solana faces questions about true decentralization.
The emergence of zk evidence aggregation for L2 settlement further challenges Solana’s position. While Solana focuses on scaling L1 execution, this approach conflicts with the requirements of a global backbone.
Looking ahead, Berckmans predicts that Solana’s year-over-year market share will continue to decline compared to Ethereum’s combined L1 and L2 ecosystem. He cites major companies like Coinbase, Kraken, Sony and Visa that have chosen Ethereum L2 solutions as proof of the market direction.
The analysis concludes that while Solana has demonstrated strength in areas such as coin growth and price appreciation, its fundamental limitations prevent it from serving as the backbone of a global financial system.
