Solana Boss Likens Meme Coins And NFTs To Loot Boxes In Mobile Games

• The co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs’ scathing remarks about meme coins and NFTs gained major backlash from the crypto community.
• Critics considered Anatoly Yakovenko’s claims a mockery of Solana’s user base.

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana (SOL) and CEO of Solana Labs, recently drew flak from the cryptocurrency community due to his controversial comments on meme coins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He called them a “digital slop” and equated their value to mobile loot boxes.

A Debate on Meme Coins and NFTs

Yokovenko’s statement came during a discussion that Sterling Crispin, an artist and software developer, initiated in response to Coop Record’s songcoins. In the said post, the developer claimed that it does not matter if a token is called Creator Coins, Culture Tokens, Internet Capital Markets, Music Tokens, AI Tokens, or meme coins.

The developer pointed out that if the mentioned tokens have low liquidity but with exponential price curves, they will always be known as shitcoins. He added that investing in meme coins is like playing musical chairs, wherein one’s benefit comes from others’ loss.

ADVERTISEMENTJesse Pollak, Head of Base and Base app, later corrected Crispin by reminding him that not all assets coming from Pump.fun and Zora are the same. What matters is their fundamentals.

Along the way, Yokovenko entered the conversation, in which he generalized that meme coins and NFTs are the same. In his scathing remark, he referred to them as “digital slop” because they lack intrinsic value. He also likened them to a mobile game loot box, on which people spend $150 billion annually on mobile gaming.

Yokovenko’s latest rant about meme coins and NFTs mirrored his posts as far back as 2024. Again, the crypto community met his antagonistic view with disdain, calling his pronouncements distasteful and an apparent mockery of Solana’s user base.

ADVERTISEMENT## Meme Coins Fueling the Solana Application Layer

Ironically, meme coins accounted for over half of Solana’s revenue. According to Syndica, these digital assets had a 62% share in the network’s monthly revenue.

The figures represented a rising trend in meme coin generation within SOL’s ecosystem, owing to its network’s low fees and effortless, one-click token creation process. Meanwhile, meme coin activity within Solana has contributed significantly to its $1.6 billion revenue during the first half of 2025.

Pump.fun (PUMP) remains the most popular launchpad for meme coins in Solana. However, the entry of LetsBONK has threatened to challenge its superiority in the niche as of late, with its 24-hour volume sometimes surpassing its predecessor’s numbers.

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