The Protocol: Solana’s Missed Moment, Exclusive Farcaster Q&A, Bullish Year of Dragon

Honestly,
we
do
try
to
keep
things
tight
here
in
The
Protocol
newsletter.
The
problem
is,
there’s
just
so
many
good
stories
in
crypto.
That’s
true
even
on
a
slower
week
as
many
of
our
readers
and
developers
in
Asia
head
toward
the
Chinese
New
Year
on
Feb.
10.
(The
“year
of
the
dragon”
is
supposed
to
be

bullish,
by
the
way.)

In
this
week’s
issue
we’ve
got:

This
article
is
featured
in
the
latest
issue
of


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Protocol,
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weekly
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behind
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Screenshot
showing
Tuesday’s
outage
on
Solana.
(Status.solana.com)

SOL
CRUSHING.
It
was
supposed
to
be
a
cause
for
celebration:
On
Feb.
25,
the
Solana
blockchain
would
complete
a
full
365
days
without
an
outage
–
seen
as
a
remarkable
milestone
given
its
historic
jankiness.
So
notable
it
was,
in
fact,
that
analysts
at
Coinbase
Institutional

called
it
out
in
a
report
last
week:
“Solana
is
fast
approaching
its
first
full
year
mark
without
any
downtime,
showcasing
its
significant
ecosystem
progress,
especially
when
compared
to
an
early
history
of
crashes
that
halted
the
chain
for
days
at
a
time.”
But
the
anniversary
was
not
to
be.
On
Tuesday,
some
20
days
shy
of
the
mark,
Solana
went
down
for
nearly
five
hours,
in
what
one
blockchain
validator
described
as
“performance
degradation.”
According
to
the
website

status.solana.com,
“Core
contributors
are
working
on
a
root
cause
report,
which
will
be
made
available
once
complete.”
CoinDesk
columnist
Daniel
Kuhn

noted
that
even
as
Solana’s
top
developers,
led
by
co-founder
Anatoly
Yakovenko,
promote
the
blockchain
as
a
top
contender
in
the
race
for
relevance,
they
have
continued
to
describe
the
project
as
being
in
“beta.”
After
Tuesday’s
outage,
such
a
descriptor
might
seem
fitting.
On
the
social-media
platform
X,
fans
of
rival
projects
from
Ethereum
to
Cardano
and
even

Litecoin
and

VeChain
were
quick
with
the
jabs.
The
prediction
market
Polymarket
posted
what
appeared
to
be
a
betting
forum
on
whether
Solana
would
“go
down
again
in
February,”
with
89
cents
on
“no”
and
11
cents
on
“yes.”

BOLD
PREDICTIONS:
Theta
Capital,
which
manages
a
fund-of-funds
program
for
crypto-native
venture
capital,
gave
CoinDesk
an
exclusive
advance
peek
at
its
“Satellite
View”
report
compiling
blockchain
predictions
from
20
top
investors,
founders
and
institutional
chieftains.
According
to
the
report,
the
compilation
keys
off
Theta
Capital’s
annual
Legends4Legends
conference,
which
raises
money
for
Alternatives4Children
(A4C),
a
“charitable
foundation
established
in
2011
in
the
Netherlands
supporting
small-scale
educational
projects
with
high
impact
potential.”
It
runs
60
pages,
and
goes
into
a
lot
of
depth
on
market
and
regulatory
trends,
but
here
are
some
of
the
boldest
predictions
for
blockchain
tech:

Top
picks
of
the
past
week
from



our
Protocol
Village


column,
highlighting
key
blockchain
tech
upgrades
and
news.

See
the
entire
Protocol
Village
list
from
this
past
week
here.

Dan
Romero

quit
his
job
at
the
big
U.S.
crypto
exchange
Coinbase
five
years
ago
to
help
found
Farcaster,
described
in
the
project’s
own
documentation,
as
a
“sufficiently
decentralized
social
network
built
on
Ethereum.”

Farcaster’s
launch
was
sufficiently
notable
to
attract
a
sizable
population
of
blockchain
developers
and
crypto
fans
as
users
of
the
platform
–
who
gravitated
toward
the
idea
of
a
decentralized
version
of
Twitter,
now
X.
It
didn’t
hurt
that
Ethereum
co-founder

Vitalik
Buterin
signed
up
as
a
user
of
Farcaster’s
Warpcast
app,
and
has
made
regular
posts.

But
what
has
vaulted
Farcaster
to
the
center
of
Crypto-Twitter
conversations
over
the
past
couple
weeks
is
the
project’s
release
on
Jan.
26
of
its
new
“Frames”
feature
–
essentially
allowing
apps
to
run
within
posts,
so
users
don’t
have
to
click
off
to
another
site.
According
to
a

dashboard
on
Dune
Analytics,
average
daily
users
on
Farcaster
has
shot
up
from
fewer
than
2,000
as
recently
as
late
January
to
now
nearly
20,000.

CoinDesk’s
Jenn
Sanasie
interviewed
Romero
this
week
about
Farcaster,
the
new
functionality,
and
what
it’s
like
to
break
out.
A
video
is

here,
and
the
following
is
an
edited
transcript.

Click
here
for
the
full
Q&A
with
Dan
Romero
by
CoinDesk’s
Jenn
Sanasie

Fundraisings

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and
Tokens

Regulatory
and
Policy

https://messari.io/report/discussion-does-ethereum-need-a-new-narrative