Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana and CEO of Solana Labs, has sparked controversy in the cryptocurrency community after declaring that memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens are "digital garbage" and "have no intrinsic value". This statement was posted on the X platform on Sunday, amid a heated debate with Jesse Pollak — founder of Base — about the true value of these digital assets.
Yakovenko argued that memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens are similar to "loot boxes" in free mobile games — something users continuously spend money on without being sure of receiving a worthy result. However, he also acknowledged that without memecoins, Solana would have difficulty achieving its current status.
Yakovenko's statement was as follows:
"I have been saying this for many years. Memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens are digital garbage, with no intrinsic value."
In the debate with Pollak, Yakovenko argued that the value of memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens only comes from market price discovery, meaning there is no intrinsic factor. In contrast, Jesse Pollak countered that digital content itself can have value, such as paintings, which have inherent artistic value regardless of whether they charge viewers.
Yakovenko also compared the role of memecoins in the Solana ecosystem to loot boxes in Apple's App Store. According to him, without loot boxes, Apple's revenue would also be "almost zero". Loot boxes have long been criticized for encouraging players to repeatedly spend money for unguaranteed rewards. This has made them a target for regulatory investigations in many countries like Australia and Germany.
In fact, Yakovenko has maintained a stance denying the intrinsic value of memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens since early 2024, through multiple previous posts on X.
However, this statement has stirred up the crypto community. A member of the Flaunch project named "Caps" criticized him for mocking Solana's own user community. Meanwhile, a cryptocurrency commentator named Karbon stated:
"I don't like how Vitalik handles memecoins, but Toly's approach is much worse – actively promoting them while simultaneously viewing them as worthless."
Despite Yakovenko publicly criticizing memecoins, data shows that Solana still heavily depends on memecoin-related activities. According to Syndica, a Solana network infrastructure company, memecoins accounted for 62% of total revenue from decentralized applications (dApps) on Solana in June 2025 — a record high to date.
This reveals a notable paradox: although Solana's leaders deny the value of memecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens, these assets are actually the critical driving force in Solana's current growth ecosystem.
