Blockchains ought to refocus on their unique goal: finance, Solana Basis President Lily Liu wrote on X Thursday, rejecting years of narratives that tried to border the know-how as a generalized alternative for the trendy web.
“Blockchains have all the time been and all the time shall be tech for finance,” Liu wrote, describing financialization and open capital markets as the sector’s core worth proposition.
Liu, who shall be talking at Consensus Hong Kong subsequent week, was notably dismissive of previous efforts to push blockchains into gaming and broad “web3” client narratives, calling them intellectually lazy and overly reliant on advertising and marketing quite than real market creation. She criticized the concept that merely inserting present functions on a blockchain, typically below the banner of “learn, write, personal” would robotically generate worth, arguing as an alternative that significant adoption requires the creation of totally new monetary markets.
The feedback land at a second when crypto prices have been plunging, with bitcoin, ether and other major tokens sliding amid macroeconomic uncertainty and fading speculative demand. Regardless of the downturn, institutional curiosity stays sturdy, as conventional monetary corporations proceed exploring tokenization, onchain settlement and funds rails.
Liu’s remarks additionally come as different trade leaders are narrowing their very own visions for blockchain utility. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recently signaled a desire to double down on Ethereum’s layer-1 scaling roadmap, pulling focus away from a sprawling layer-2-centric approach that has dominated Ethereum’s technique in recent times. The shift displays doubling down on fragmented ecosystems to focus on usability and coherence.
Taken collectively, the feedback spotlight a broader recalibration underway throughout the trade: as prices fall, trade leaders are doubling down that the know-how underpinning all of this nonetheless has its goal.
Learn extra: From ‘Ethereum’s sidekick’ to standalone stars: How Vitalik Buterin’s latest pivot is forcing Layer 2s to grow up
UPDATE (Feb. 5, 2026, 16:38 UTC): Edits headline.
