ICYMI: AMA With Vinny Lingham and Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko

“Markets don’t wait for engineering timelines.”

–Vinny Lingham

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That’s Vinny Lingham describing why Civic is integrating with the Solana blockchain in a special AMA last week, featuring a fireside chat with Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO and Co-Founder of Solana.

As background, Ethereum transaction fees have soared since last summer, blocking the mainstream adoption of DeFi and squeezing companies that depend on a functional blockchain ecosystem. With a second layer solution requiring months of development, chain-agnostic Civic and its non-profit partner, Identity.com, are paving a better path by leveraging Solana’s blazing speed and low fees that scale as the ecosystem grows.

Vinny’s point was that companies experiencing the stranglehold of high ETH fees don’t have time to simply wait months for a software fix that may work. There are many available alternatives, including solutions like Solana that are better-positioned for the future.

For its part, Civic believes that with identity as a cornerstone of blockchain infrastructure, a safer, more sustainable financial ecosystem may develop. And, with its unique expertise in identity-based key management and recovery, Civic will help make financial tools more accessible to mainstream consumers.

The journey to working with Solana began several years ago, when Vinny was first introduced to Anatoly in the most unusual way. As Anatoly recounts to Vinny during the virtual event, they met through a mutual friend that plays underwater hockey, back when Solana was looking for its seed round of funding. Anatoly said it really was that weird sport with a small community that led to the check that got the company its start.

Key Takeaways

• 03:15: Civic is integrating with the Solana blockchain to leverage blazing speed and scalable fees.
• 23:18: Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko joined Civic CEO Vinny Lingham for a fireside chat. Spoiler: they met through a mutual friend who played underwater hockey.
• 30:15: Why is Solana the right platform for DeFi?
• 45:15: The move away from ETH was prompted by high gas fees and a long timeline for Layer 2.

Other Highlights

During the event, Anatoly and Vinny cover a range of topics, including Solana’s vision for DeFi at inception (30:15), what it was like last summer when ETH gas prices spiked (27:23), and what the landscape will look like now that many corporations have invested in cryptocurrency (40:44). Importantly, they cover the near future of identity. Anatoly notes that the “Summer of DeFi” proved that small groups of 10,000 to 20,000 people can easily organize around the idea. By knowing that a fellow group member is a verified human, the community can very easily build decentralized trust, unleashing a brand new way to connect and take action around good ideas (38:37).

Check out the full AMA above and hear more about what it takes to move blockchains. With the integration well underway, Civic will have more announcements about our consumer gateway soon.