It's been an impressive month for the digital assets tied to billionaire crypto exchange executive Sam Bankman-Fried.

Solana, the layer-1 blockchain competitor to Ethereum, has seen its price surge 47.8% over the last month, according to CoinGecko. Bankman-Fried is one of Solana's most prominent supporters. Meanwhile, Serum, the Solana-based DEX, has seen its native token Serum increase by nearly 62% over the last seven days, Coin Gecko data shows.

During this episode of The Scoop, we dive deep into the Solana and Serum eco-systems. Sam Bankman-Fried explains why FTX decided to launch a decentralized exchange on Solana versus Ethereum, which supports the vast majority of non-custodial protocols.

"Any products that we tried to build or that even that we tried to scope out — we originally were just definitely going to build on Ethereum because that's where everything was — product after product got into the same death dial which was 10 transactions a second for the network was just not enough," Bankman-Fried said.

Solana's blockchain promises more scalability through a new consensus mechanism known as Proof of History. It appears to be favorable among traders. Serum, which FTX announced in July, has seen its trading volumes top $1 billion last month, as per The Block's data dashboard.

Of course, the benefits of a more scalable blockchain raises questions about decentralization. He said that there are limitations relative to Ethereum, but it is possible to get a lot more participation than other more scalable blockchains.

"Solana has gone down in the direction of saying, hey, look we want the performance of blockchain to be an important criteria of it and we care a lot about the efficiency and scaling and economics of it," he said. "While also wanting there to be a sufficiently big group of nodes. Now, what does sufficiently mean? I don't know. Different people have different thresholds. Right now, they're about 600 active nodes on Solana."

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions.

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Bakkt, Kraken, and Exodus

Bakkt® unlocks the $1.2+ trillion of digital assets that is currently held in cryptocurrencies, rewards and loyalty points, gaming assets and merchant stored value. We began in 2018 with the vision to bring trust and transparency to digital assets. Through the Bakkt Warehouse and Bakkt Bitcoin Futures and Options contracts, we serve institutional clients in an end-to-end regulated market with true price transparency. For consumers, Bakkt aggregates digital assets to enable instant liquidity and to empower users to trade, transfer and pay however they want. Visit Bakkt.com for more information

About Kraken

Whether you’re an experienced crypto trader or just starting out, Kraken has the tools to help you achieve financial freedom. With 50+ cryptocurrencies to choose from, industry-leading security and a wide variety of features to suit any investing strategy, Kraken puts the power in your hands to buy, sell and trade digital assets. Visit Kraken.com to get started today.

About Exodus

Exodus is leading the world out of traditional finance by building beautiful and user-friendly crypto products. Forget having to learn the nuances of different cryptocurrencies. Exodus is designed for everyone and hides the complex details behind a beautiful and intuitive interface. Buy and sell one cryptocurrency for another from the comfort of your wallet, in seconds. Funds remain under your full control. Secure, manage, stake, and exchange all of your favorite cryptocurrencies from one wallet. No account registration is required. Download Exodus at Exodus.com or directly from Google Play and the iOS App Store and you’re ready to go.

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried breaks down the Solana and Serum ecoystems 35:52 Share

The Scoop

Shownotes Transcript

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried breaks down the Solana and Serum ecoystems