The Solana Foundation was faced with an important reaction after a controversial promotional video entitled “America is back – time to accelerate “ triggered the indignation within the cryptographic community.
On March 17, Solana’s official account posted the now deleted announcement, which represented the United States as a man in therapy who has trouble focusing on technological progress, including crypto and space trips due to societal debates on pronouns and gender identity.
The announcement quickly sparked criticism for being politically charged and divisor. Many in cryptographic space condemned him for having undermined the values of neutrality and inclusiveness of the industry.
After the buttress, the Solana Foundation deleted the video after nine hours, but not before it was more than a million views.
‘Very few people’
In response to the controversy, Matt Sorg, vice-president of the Solana Foundation technology, said on March 18 that only a limited number of people within the Solana ecosystem was directly involved with advertising production.
Sorg’s declaration came in response to Adam Cochran, partner of Cinneamhain Ventures, who asked how the announcement had passed several stages of approval without objections.
Cochran argued that so few individuals were involved, someone should have been concerned during brainstorming, scenarios’ writing, shooting or post-production.
However, Sorg defended the Foundation and stressed that most of the production stages were outsourced in external teams. He also reiterated that the video did not reflect the broader views of the Solana ecosystem.
He said:
“Although it is displayed on the main channel, it is not as if it represented the excited ecosystem by the message.”
In a separate post, Sorg commented on the wider philosophical debate surrounding controversy. He argued that creativity and human expression should not be forced by rigid executives, declaring:
“The beauty of humanity is not limited to the natural random or to the robotic binary production. We are creative, we can beat entropy. Exploration of ourselves and our possibilities is not anti-innovation. ”
However, he admitted the disappointment of being linked to the announcement of the announcement.
Solana slap community
Despite this defense, prominent voices within the Crypto community have spoken out against the campaign.
According to them, the announcement rekindled the debates on political messaging in the cryptography industry, the criticisms arguing that it reported a change to partisan stories.
Caitlin Cook, a well -known member of the community, called the “embarrassing and cringing teeth” announcement, arguing that the foundation should focus on inspiration and the formation of the story rather than on the food division.
Likewise, Andrew Thurman of the Jito Foundation criticized the blockchain organizations to engage in political discourse, urging neutrality.
The COO of Doublezero and the former member of the Solana Foundation, David McIntyre, described the video as “horrible”. He argued that the celebration of America did not require treating cultural conflicts and urged the foundation to focus on positive messaging on the impact of Solana.
Cochran delivered one of the strongest reprimands, highlighting the important contributions from transgender developers to the open source cryptography, security and intelligence software. He criticized the premise of the announcement, stressing that industry has long been motivated by a culture of meritocracy which values contributions on identity.
Mentioned in this article
