Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko names self-custody the biggest threat to Solana's mainstream acceptance.
In the interview with Fortune, Anatoly said that apart from Solana, other cryptocurrencies and decentralized platforms will find it hard to reach mainstream if there are no solutions to self-custody issues.
According to his words, self-custody is the "biggest bottleneck in crypto."
When Anatoly commented about self-custody, he was referring to the practice of users owning their private keys.
He clarified that users still find it hard to store their crypto by themselves because of how cumbersome it is. He also said that leaving one's private keys at a crypto exchange invalidates that whole point of decentralized finance.
" I honestly think it's gonna be kind of slow because of this mental barrier to self-custody," Anatoly said.
He further said that there's a need to create solutions that will break people's mental barriers to crypto.
"We don't know what those breakouts applications will be that makes that shift. But something needs to give," he said.
Anatoly also said mainstream adoption with Solana and other cryptocurrencies would take a long time.
He also pointed out how people's mindsets are about cryptocurrencies. He said there is still some work to be done.
According to him, the adoption of Solana and other cryptocurrencies will happen when a person "figures out how to generate a key and store it securely, and then sign transactions."
He added that "it is really a slow process," and people still need to be enlightened about that aspect of crypto.
Other Hurdles
Apparently, co-founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, said self-custody is the major challenge and not the only one.
The Solana main man said that there are other problems facing the widespread adoption of Solana.
Regarding smart contracts, Solana is the major Ethereum competitor. Solana is also a major player in the NFT and decentralized finance industry.
During the interview with Fortune, Anatoly Yakovenko addressed the claims that the recent downtimes are Solana's fault.
Although Solana has had multiple downtimes, Anatoly says that users must change how they view situations like that.
"When people ignore the best practices – when the best practices get easier, and the people ignore than – it will be pretty obvious whose fault that is," Anatoly Yakovenko said.
The Solana co-founder said that users also contribute to issues like the one Solana faces when they don't follow the best practices.
Anatoly Yakovenko Believes Ethereum Merge isn't a Big Deal
During an interview with Bloomberg Technology, Anatoly Yakovenko said that Ethereum still has a long way to go with scalability.
According to him, the Ethereum merge had little impact on improving Ethereum scalability.
"The Ethereum merge doesn't really improve the scalability of the network. When you look at the number of transactions that Solana handles from applications and from users on a daily basis, that's more than not just Ethereum but all Ethereum-based blockchains combined," Anatoly said.
However, Anatoly Yakovenko pinpointed the positive impact of the Ethereum merge. According to him, the Ethereum merge will help reduce transaction costs and time.