7 months ago
The Solana blockchain's two-year comeback communicative whitethorn person reached its zenith with SOL's grounds precocious successful precocious November. But, 2 months earlier, the blockchain's assemblage had already travel unneurotic to crippled aboriginal successes astatine its yearly conference, hosted by Solana Foundation President Lily Liu.
Liu, a task capitalist with Anagram and <a href="https://www.l2iterative.com/team/lily-liu" target="_blank">L2 Iterative Ventures</a>, whitethorn not beryllium arsenic well-known to the SOL faithful arsenic the blockchain's founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Behind the scenes, she whitethorn beryllium conscionable arsenic important. While the Solana Foundation doesn't exert operational power implicit the network, it holds monolithic power successful shaping the blockchain's story.
Somehow uncovering the time, Liu precocious joined <a href="https://x.com/Ledger/status/1861077508470313430" target="_blank">the committee of Ledger</a>. She is besides connected the founding squad of Osmosis, a decentralized exchange, and acts arsenic an advisor to Brave, the pioneering Web3 browser. Previously, she co-founded Earn.com, a staking startup that was acquired by Coinbase successful 2018.
Liu is simply a ace astute thinker, appearing connected aggregate stages each year. She tin basal up for Solana against the top minds successful crypto. Here, for instance, is <a href="https://x.com/calilyliu/status/1841956749214929144" target="_blank">her duking it retired precocious with Sreeram Kannan</a> (“The Blockchain Professor”) successful a conflict of Ethereum-vs. -Solana comparative merits.
At the conference, Liu engineered a radically antithetic league setup. Instead of peppering its stages with 20 infinitesimal panels, her squad broke astir timeslots into 5 infinitesimal merchandise keynote sessions for founders to hone – and proclaim – their creations. The plan was arsenic overmuch astir informing Breakpoint's attendees arsenic it was processing byte-sized promotional videos the founders could instrumentality with them.
Liu's alternate league plan shifted the absorption from Solana itself to the entrepreneurs gathering permissionless fiscal systems atop it, from stablecoins to gaming and beyond. And successful the contention for blockchains to beryllium they person purpose, that whitethorn marque each the difference.
This illustration is portion of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024 package. For each of this year's nominees, click here.
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