‘Ethereum Is Awesome', Says Solana Co-Founder Amid Planned MakerDAO Migration

MakerDAO’s controversial endgame inches closer.

A multi-year Maker protocol overhaul, dubbed "Endgame," is reaching its final phase, according to protocol co-founder Rune Christensen—setting the stage for the resurgence of a timeless rivalry.

“The last phase of Endgame is the launch of a native blockchain for Maker with the codename NewChain,” tweeted Christensen late Friday.

The crux of the controversy lies in the tweet’s final words: “After some research, I believe the Solana codebase should be considered as the basis for NewChain.”

Outlining three main reasons, Rune explained that it is due to the technical quality of the blockchain, as well as its resilience after the FTX blow up, and proven examples of Solana’s codebase being forked for other successful projects. 

If his preference comes to pass, it would mean that MakerDAO—which up until now has lived on Ethereum—will essentially migrate to a long-time rival.

Christensen’s endorsement of Solana sparked backlash on Crypto Twitter, with many users questioning the decision. 

“For your information,” said one user, “your user base primarily has more allegiance to Ethereum,” adding that Christensen “should probably give that more weight” than he is.

Ethereum and Solana communities have been at each other's necks for years, with the latter’s co-founder once appearing on CNBC to declare that “Ethereum is way too slow for peer-to-peer payments.”

Things have changed in 2023, however. 

Anatoly ‘Toly’ Yakovenko, Solana’s co-founder, preemptively took to Twitter to stave off a possible attack from his own protocol's community. 

“Maker considering Solana’s tech is a win for open source,” he posted, adding that he “really hope[s] that people in the community don’t use this as some cudgel to attack Ethereum.”

Yakovenko then went a step further and tweeted “Ethereum is awesome,” and that a lot of Solana’s tech stack was inspired by Ethereum’s research and development. “Solana wasn’t built in a vacuum.”

Solana’s co-founder pointed to proto-danksharding, an upcoming Ethereum upgrade that he considers “a good design for a settlement layer.”

Some were quick to counter that he had "gone soft” on Ethereum. Another wrote, "The mere utterance of Solana next to Maker is fascinating in itself. Excited to see their next steps."

Toly’s views were echoed by Matias Barrios, security researcher for Kudelski Security and a Solana programs auditor, who said he is surprised by the reaction of the Solana community. He claimed that he had not “seen any mocking” of Ethereum.

As he told Decrypt, “Christensen’s backing is an important validation [for Solana] coming from one of the strongest projects in the ecosystem.”

Barrios said he agrees with Yakovenko’s peace-keeping efforts, adding that “tribalism is the worst we can do in innovation,” and that “Ethereum and Solana are simply two different roads.”

Not to be sidelined by the possible reignition of rivalry, MakerDAO’s Christensen also heeded Yakovenko’s words of warning. 

“Ethereum is great, Solana is great. Cosmos is great,” he posted on Saturday. 

“All chains are increasingly interconnected and synergize to form a global multi chain network economy,” he wrote, concluding that “Tribalist incels (of every flavor) are in the wrong decade—go back to Bitcoin and let the rest of us build."