In this episode of Empire, Anatoly Yakovenko and Ben Sparango join us to discuss Solana's future in the aftermath of FTX. SBF and FTX were core investors and contributors to the Solana ecosystem. How did Solana get so intertwined with FTX? How bad was Solana damaged as a result? How will Solana recover? These are just a few of the questions we explore.

We then dive into Solana's roadmap and discuss Solana's new local fee market, network outages, decentralization worries, monolithic chains vs rollups, the Solana mobile stack and more. This is the go-to podcast for all Solana fans and skeptics!

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(01:18) How Did Solana Get So Intertwined With FTX?

(11:20) How Important Was SBF To Solana’s Growth?

(17:36) Fallout From Reliance On FTX

(20:05) Did You See This Coming?

(25:07) What Exchanges Got Wrong & Alameda’s 10% SOL Stake

(29:58) FTX Impact On Solana Apps & Developers

(33:30) Where Does Solana Go From Here?

(42:13) Solana’s Fee Markets & Decentralization Questions

(46:16) Solving Solana’s Network Outages

(57:38) Monolithic Blockchains, Layer 2s & New Learnings

(1:07:10) Economic Sustainability

(1:10:30) Avalanche vs Cosmos, Who’s Solana's Main Competitor?

(1:14:59) The Importance Of Business Development

(1:19:18) Google Partnership & The Solana Phone

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Circle’s USDC has quickly become one of the most trusted and widely used stablecoins because of its composability, stability and reserve transparency. As a seamless, trusted digital currency, USDC is a zero-to-one opportunity for the global financial system. Check out their Transparency Hub at http://empirepodcast.link/circle that outlines everything from links to USDC weekly reserve reports, monthly attestations, and blog posts written by their executive team highlighting how and why USDC was built the way it is.

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Resources

Break Solana website

https://break.solana.com/

Chris Burniske's thread on Solana

https://twitter.com/cburniske/status/1590455521307660290

Anatoly and Dankrad debate

https://bit.ly/3Umky4T

Solana events webpage

https://solana.com/events

Solana Twitter account

https://twitter.com/solana

The Solana Podcast

https://bit.ly/3FgMAdS

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Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.