Eno Sim, Chief Vibes Officer of Sanctum, set Day 2 stage of Breakpoint 25 on fire, bringing in the energy and hyping his audience gathered in the aptly-titled ‘Absolute Cinema’ stage. Sim started with an ‘Assalamu Alaikkum’ and asked the crowd for energetic Solana cheers, which he said was better than ‘two coffees and a beer’.
According to Sim, 2025 has been a blockbuster year for the network with all the institutional adoption, exchange-traded funds (ETF) inflows and issuance of on-chain revenue with continually rising developers on Solana.
He then invited the two leading figures from Solana as he calls them – the men, the myth, the legends – Raj Gokal, COO of Solana Labs, and Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs.
The crowd went wild, screaming and hooting for the simply-dressed men, who outshined the stage’s vibes, and then Raj made his first statement. “Someone just said, ‘Have my babies’”, sparking a wave of laughter filling the room.
The host asked Anatoly what his de-facto explanation for blockchain is, when a mom’s friend asks, “what do you do?”
Anatoly replied, “The easiest way to explain it is like childhood trauma and leaving the Soviet Union and that you can take your assets with you when you gotta flee.”
One side memes, the other side ETFs
Among the other themes discussed, the two were asked to share their insights on these trends. As memes and culture-driven use cases gain momentum, a parallel shift toward institutional adoption, driven by ETF launches, is reshaping the digital assets space.
“The internet has always been very serious and creates a lot of value that’s very easy to understand, and also entertainment. Nvidia started as a video game company, so I think memes and NFTs and all these things are kind of the cats’ part of the internet, but because of those, we’re able to build and develop technology that can really serve global finance, as cheap as physics alone. I think that that’s really cool, that we get to do both,” Anatoly said.
“I remember the first time I set up an email address was because my cousin in South Africa wanted to send me the dancing baby Gif. That’s why I got an email address. And you know, that’s why a lot of people got an email address. so I think meme coins might be the first reason a lot of people get a wallet, but it grows into something much larger.” said Gokal.
Tracing back history
While they envisioned the future, they also re-winded the journey. Solana began as a ghost chain, and then it moved into DeFi chains, next an FTX chain, and then a memecoin. Now, it’s used for absolutely everything!
One of the most interesting questions the host raised was, “If you guys were not the founders of Solana, and Solana existed today, what would you build on Solana?”
“Every time I have an answer to that question, if I scroll enough on Twitter (X), I see that somebody is already building it on Solana, which is a great sign,” Raj said, inciting a laughing response from the audience.
“I think the latest one is more gamified trading interfaces for options, because it seems like anything that makes finance more fun is aligned with where crypto is heading,” he added.
Sharing views, 10 years from now, people will have a less ‘toxic and scary’ relationship with finance because of crypto, as per the discussions.
10 years from now?
Raj shared his views by stating that he sees a potential in Solana accelerating its share of how much crypto gets over the next 10 years. As he sees the percentage of global finance that will be on-chain soon.
“I think it’s reasonable. And I think crypto is accelerating faster than any of us anticipated. In 2017 we didn’t imagine we’d have such a clear US regulatory environment. We get the support of major countries, issuing assets on-chain at major banks. So I think that we should probably upgrade that to like 25%, and you know, Solana gets at least 10%,” he said.
Raj’s view gave hope to the audience, but they had a giggle over Anatoly’s response.
I can’t think of more than like, 8 weeks ahead.
The chat ended with the next big announcement.
Breakpoint 26 to be held in London
Anatoly gave out the next big announcement with a video revealing – “where we’re all going to meet up next year.” Solana Breakpoint 2026 is set to take place in Olympia, London, UK, from November 15 to 17.
The uproar following the announcement was a reminder why the crypto degen world loves the Solana Ecosystem.
