Helius Labs CEO Defends Solana Amid Criticism Over Meme Coin Frenzy

The Solana blockchain has come under fire, with critics calling it a breeding ground for speculative assets.

However, Helius Labs CEO Mert Mumtaz argues that the chain is being unfairly blamed for trends that exist across all networks.

The Meme Coin Scourge

Solana’s recent surge in activity has been largely fueled by meme coins, including U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania’s offerings, Official Trump (TRUMP) and Melania Meme (MELANIA).

However, following bad experiences with some of these tokens, where retail traders were liquidated following pumps and dumps triggered by insider trading, some critics have labeled Solana “the worst thing to happen” to the digital asset space.

Just days ago, crypto trader Hayden Davis launched LIBRA, a coin whose apparent promotion by President Javier Milei of Argentina fired up its afterburners, pushing its market cap beyond $4 billion.

However, Milei later pulled down his endorsement, causing the meme coin’s value to plunge by 90%, losing investors lots of money. On-chain data revealed that insiders reaped huge profits, with Davis admitting in an interview that he was sitting on more than $100 million from the LIBRA launch.

The situation was made worse when some observers accused platforms like Jupiter and Meteora, which are built on Solana, of complicity in the LIBRA scheme. The allegations caused Meteora co-founder Ben Chow to step down, with an independent third-party firm contracted to investigate the claims.

Mert Mumtaz Responds to Critics

Such incidents have turned public sentiment against Solana, prompting Mumtaz to weigh in on the debate, accusing detractors of tarring the chain’s entire ecosystem over the actions of a few bad actors.

“You framed thousands of honest builders for the actions of a few scumbags, wrote Mumtaz on X. “The criminals will be punished, and the builders will keep building,” he added.

In another post, he highlighted the challenges of managing a decentralized network like Solana, where there are far more grifters than builders:

“In every industry, value creators are outnumbered by value extractors.”

The software developer also dismissed claims that Solana is solely a “meme coin casino,” highlighting various applications, including decentralized GPU rendering, confidential payments, tokenized real estate, as well as on-chain governance as some of the key innovations on the blockchain.

“Interesingly, this does not interest the loudest people on twitter as much as coins,” he said, “but they do exist.”

The criticism is not unique to Solana. During the ICO boom of 2017, Ethereum faced a similar backlash after it emerged that at least 80% of ICOs in that period were scams, with the biggest, BitConnect, milking $2.6 billion from investors.