Solana co-founder rebukes Sanders, defends DeFi

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, rejected Sen. Bernie Sanders’ warning that artificial intelligence and robotics could cost millions of American jobs in a series of posts on June 7, 2026. Yakovenko defended free markets and decentralized finance, saying market incentives and capital drive prosperity.

Sanders wrote that Congress has abandoned workers threatened by automation because industry spending has warped politics, and he renewed calls to ban super PACs and strengthen anti-corruption measures. Disclosures show a network called Leading the Future raised about $125 million in late 2025 and pledged at least $100 million for the midterm elections.

Yakovenko answered in more than a dozen posts, criticizing Sanders’ focus on hypothetical job losses and on industry donations. He said Sanders was “focusing on hypothetical sci fi problems” and used profanity to dismiss the senator’s approach to solving real issues. Yakovenko argued that capital is productive and that surplus production raises living standards.

He expanded his remarks to assert that more very wealthy individuals would increase global living standards, claiming 500 additional trillionaires would roughly double the global standard of living, all else equal. Yakovenko also recounted his family’s emigration from the Soviet Union with about $50 per person, describing central planning as a longer-term threat to workers than automation.

Yakovenko tied the dispute to crypto and decentralized finance, arguing that any profitable financial activity that can be coded as a smart contract will be recreated on-chain. He wrote that DeFi can reduce the cost of finance to the cost of software. Yakovenko has previously released code for a perpetuals exchange and has urged lawmakers to back builders.

Polling shows rising public distrust of both crypto and AI while political action committees and other groups increase spending ahead of primary elections. Solana’s native token, SOL, traded around $65.36 at the time of reporting, up about 6% over 24 hours.

Primary elections are approaching.