Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has ignited a fresh debate on social media regarding the distributed nature of his network, claiming that Solana has already surpassed Ethereum in decentralization and might even be ahead of Bitcoin.

Yakovenko assertively stated, "Solana is closer to Satoshi's levels of decentralization than Ethereum. Maybe even past Satoshi at this point." This provocative comment quickly garnered significant attention, particularly given Solana's history of facing criticism due to technical mishaps and downtimes.

Addressing common criticisms about Solana's hardware requirements, Yakovenko emphasized that anyone can run a Solana node on a laptop. He is likely referring to the capability to operate "Light Clients" or non-voting nodes, which enable users to independently verify the ledger's state without requiring industrial-grade server infrastructure.

Further elaborating on his perspective on decentralization, Yakovenko articulated in December 2025 that the distribution model of tokens might not be the sole determinant. He stated, "My hot take is that any correctly constructed proof-of-stake network is sufficiently decentralized regardless of stake distribution or ownership or value." Back in August 2025, he had already affirmed Solana's inherent decentralization, explaining that "A permissionlessly run full node is all anyone needs to participate in any part of the stack. There is no way for the rest of the network to steal the user's funds, unlike a security council multisig. That’s the difference."