The Future of Solana and Joining the Ledger Board

The Future of Solana and Joining the Ledger Board

with

Lily Liu & Ariel Wengroff
President of Solana Foundation & EVP of Marketing & Communications @ Ledger

November 25, 2024

On this special episode of The Ledger Podcast, Lily Liu, President of the Solana Foundation and co-founder of Anagram and Osmosis, sits down with Ledger’s Ariel Wengroff to discuss her appointment to Ledger’s board of directors. This discussion offers a unique perspective on how values-based communities, financial innovation, and user experience are shaping the future of Web3. In it, Lily and Ariel explore the crucial link between sovereignty and self-custody, the evolution of crypto infrastructure, and Solana’s potential to fulfill the original promise of the Bitcoin white paper. 

“I think it really comes down to self-custody. I think that is the root of having digital property rights in an increasingly Digital World.” – Lily Liu

Key Highlights:

From Sovereignty to Self-Custody: The Personal Journey

Lily’s journey to crypto began with intellectual curiosity about sovereignty and systemic resilience, and an attraction to studying historical patterns and recognizing how incremental changes can lead to significant outcomes over time. For Lily, this historical perspective directly connects to why self-custody is the foundation that enables everything else—programmable money, open finance, and parallel economic systems that can provide greater opportunity to entrepreneurs globally. 

“This is part of the reason why I’ve been into Ledger and been a user of Ledger and been part of The Ledger Community for a while.”

Solana’s Vision: Fulfilling Bitcoin’s Original Promise

While Bitcoin has firmly established itself as “digital gold,” Lily sees Solana as the platform that can deliver on the original vision outlined in the Bitcoin white paper: a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system.” She notes that Bitcoin’s evolution deliberately chose protocol immutability over becoming an adaptable technology platform, creating space for ecosystems like Solana to flourish. By providing the infrastructure for smart contracts and decentralized applications, Solana aims to be the foundation for a new generation of financial services and consumer experiences that were imagined in the early days of blockchain.

The Memecoin Phenomenon: Cultural Expression Meets Financial Innovation

Lily also notes how memecoins have become a fascinating form of cultural expression around current affairs. Far from dismissing them, Lily recognizes their value to network validators—through September 2024, approximately $380 million in fees were paid to validators, largely from memecoin trading. This unexpected development demonstrates how crypto communities organically create value in ways that foundations never anticipated.

“Memecoins are fantastic for validators… who would have thought that sentence would come about.” – Lily Liu

The L2 Paradox: Fragmentation vs. User Experience

Lily raises critical questions about the Layer 2 ecosystem’s direction, particularly the emerging narrative that “decentralization doesn’t matter” in favor of speed. She challenges this thinking: if users prioritize convenience over decentralization, how can a fragmented ecosystem deliver the consumer experience people actually want? This tension between technical ideals and user expectations remains unresolved.

Ledger’s Role in Retail Accessibility

With over 90% market share in retail self-custody, Ledger serves as a “cornerstone of the industry.” Lily emphasizes that if crypto’s core premise is self-sovereignty through self-custody, it must be retail accessible. Her decision to join Ledger’s board stems from recognizing that technology alone isn’t enough—building emotion, culture, and community around the technology is equally crucial.

“If you really sit down and think about it, how could you not desire sovereignty?” – Lily Liu

Looking Ahead: The Future of Digital Finance

Lily envisions a future where using money on crypto rails becomes as seamless as clicking a button on the internet today. Rather than having separate verticals for traditional finance and crypto, she sees a horizontal infrastructure where users can access everything from Bitcoin to tokenized real estate to memecoins through one unified platform.

Her goal for the Solana Foundation reflects this vision: to become less necessary each year as the community becomes self-sustaining. The foundation’s role should be helping with institutional adoption and infrastructure, while organic innovation—like the memecoin economy—drives the majority of value creation.

“In 10 years, I hope what it is is when they just use money, they don’t think about it… Those are just the rails of how they use money.” – Lily Liu

Watch the episode here:

Reading List

Learn more about these topics mentioned in the episode, or explore our library of articles on Ledger Academy:

• Self-Custody
• Solana Ecosystem
• Memecoins & Solana Memecoins
• Layer 2 Scaling Solutions
• Digital Sovereignty
• Ledger Stax
• Ledger Flex
• Tokenization