Howdy!

Happy Monday. I’m glad to be turning the page on a worst-case weekend that saw the Buffalo Bills lose and the Kansas City Chiefs win. 

Today, we have Max Resnick joining Anza, the top crypto yappers, and Pudgy Penguins on Solana.

Ethereum researcher Max Resnick makes surprise jump to Solana

Max Resnick, who has in recent months become one of Ethereum’s more notable online figures, has joined Solana core development shop Anza, he announced on X today. 

Resnick previously worked at a Consensys subsidiary named Special Mechanisms Group and became known for his contrarian beliefs on Ethereum’s roadmap — arguing that some thinking around layer-2s was misguided and Ethereum should focus on scaling the base layer. In classic crypto fashion, much of Resnick’s rising star originated on X: Kaito AI ranks him as having the 40th-highest mindshare on Crypto Twitter over the past three months. 

Consensys is a software company started by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin in 2014, and is perhaps best known for creating the MetaMask wallet. Anza is a Solana Labs spin-out that is responsible for continuing to develop the original Solana software.

The move was celebrated in the Solana world, where Resnick’s move to Solana was viewed as something of a coup. For Ethereum, Resnick doesn’t quite reach household name status like Justin Drake or Dankrad Feist do, but another high-profile defection following Resnick’s could certainly “raise some eyebrows,” said Paul Dylan-Ennis, a professor researching crypto at University College Dublin.

Resnick's transition to Anza was helped along by Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, who encouraged the researcher to take the leap, Resnick shared with me today. The process started around three months ago. Resnick was also considering moves to Ethereum layer-2s or non-MetaMask crypto wallets.

Resnick said on X that he would be spending his first 100 days at Anza focusing on fee markets and consensus while getting up to speed on how Solana works at a core level. On a call today, Resnick added that his “moonshot” vision for Solana would be to add “multiple leaders” to the protocol. 

On Ethereum and Solana today, one so-called leader is chosen to propose a block for validators to check. Under this model, the single leader has a “ton” of economic power which makes the protocols economically inefficient, Resnick said. Having multiple leaders compete to propose blocks could put downward pressure on how much economic value leaders can extract from validators. 

Resnick credits himself with widening Ethereum’s overton window to allow for more serious conversations around how the layer-1 can scale, pointing out Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist’s recent focus on scaling the L1 as an example.

But ultimately, Resnick sees Solana's culture as more open to unconventional ideas, such as having multiple leaders — in comparison to Ethereum, which can tend to be bogged down by “political bullshit.”

“The ETH culture is really downstream of core development, and people who actually want to get things done are changing their personality, changing what they're suggesting in order to make sure that they preserve political capital with the core dev community,” Resnick said.

— Jack Kubinec

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It’s an ETH vs. SOL battle on X right now:

These are the top 10 leaders in crypto mindshare on X over the past three months, as measured by Kaito. 

The final count? Four Solana folks, three Ethereans, one Michael Saylor and two AI agents. I would love to see all these posters hang out in a bar someday.

— Jack Kubinec

Guess penguins aren't so flightless after all. Pudgy Penguins recently announced its decision to leave the Ethereum-native nest, choosing instead to launch its new PENGU token on Solana. The token will have a total supply of 88.88 billion, with allocations planned for current NFT holders, public initiatives and DEX liquidity. This decision adds to the growing narrative of Ethereum projects and developers eyeing Solana for its high-speed transactions and lower fees.

CryptoGarga, co-founder of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), didn’t mince words about Ethereum’s cultural problems. In response to the news, he said, "Launch your token on Sol where Toly and Raj will greet you with open arms, or on ETH where podcasters cry that NFTs are securities while they get allocations in all the scam alignment infra."

Many echoed Garga’s frustrations. @BautiDeFi commented, "Eth culture has been going to shit because it's full of money-hungry pajama-wearing larpers who have pushed out the cyberpunks that made this all possible." @chrisheatherly agreed, "It certainly feels like the SOL community is much more supportive of new projects than the Ethereum community… whatever that is anymore." Others questioned whether Solana could maintain its welcoming culture over time. @z0r0zzz remarked, "Everyone is nice when the party is rocking. Free beer. Good times. Everyone making money. I would like to see how they do in another bear [market]."

@cj_coordi dismissed Garga’s remarks as bitterness, saying, "You sound butthurt that people said bad things about you, so now you’re taking your ball and going home. Grow up." Others saw his critique as ironic. @MeltedMindz declared, "You and your monkey company almost ruined Ethereum." @0xTopa fired back as well, responding, "Bro sick culture you got there, you're a parasite that extracted millions from shitty art you didn’t even pay for fairly [...] You literally corrupted the cyberpunk culture into a frat boy house."

Amid the divisiveness, @RyanSAdams offered a moment of perspective: "ETH is $4K, BTC is $100K — can’t we all just be happy?" @timjrobinson pointed out that Pudgy Penguins’ decision is unlikely to be a permanent shift: "Pudgy Penguins are building an L2 — Abstract — which is their home. Launching the memecoin on Solana allows them to pick up a new user base and bring them over later."

To that end, the Pudgy Penguins team themselves emphasized their cross-chain vision, with developer @davidbailey_eth clarifying, "We will launch on Ethereum too, just later.”

— Jeffrey Albus

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