'Use Your Brain': Solana's Yakovenko Busts Speculations About Potential Hardfork

Solana (SOL) developers are concerned by the potential opportunity to change the design of "immutable" programs (Solana's smart contracts). The blockchain's cofounder, Anatoly Yakovenko, claims that malicious updates will not pass even with new rules.

Solana (SOL) upgrade proposal sparks controversy, cofounder Yakovenko makes things clear

Pseudonymous crypto engineer @blockiosaurus, a core developer of Solana's infrastructure toolkit Metaplex, raises concerns about a recent proposal by Ansa and Solana Labs. According to his thread, since the new proposal makes "immutable" token programs changeable, the credibility and security of Solana (SOL) is in danger.

Should the proposal change pass, the crucial programs — including token mint standards — might be adjusted voluntarily. This, in turn, challenges the very status of "immutability" in Solana's (SOL) tech design.

Responding to the thread, Solana cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko explained that this change will not put the status quo in danger. As a single node would oppose the potentially malicious hardfork implementation, it will be able to restart the legitimate chain:

Let’s say there was a feature flag to steal all of the usdc. Circles node would refuse to take the upgrade and activate that flag.  That single node can provide a replica to restart the whole chain without the flag.  It’s up to social consensus ultimately to follow the “right” one (...) Any validator feature flags depend on 1/N honest participants to detect that the upgrade is malicious.  That’s the difference.  Use your brain.

At the same time, Yakovenko admitted that such a radical change might be too risky given its potential impact — a 20% performance boost.

This, in turn, might be addressed by running two independent formal verifications or running both programs (old and new) in parallel for six months.

Solana (SOL) TVL targets new records over $12 billion

Solana (SOL) is the fastest-growing and most trending smart contract platform right now. Its core cryptocurrency, SOL, is the fifth-largest crypto, with $115 billion market capitalization.

It is also the largest altcoin that set new all-time highs in this bullish cycle. In January 2025, its total value locked across all DeFi apps (TVL) logged a record high over $12 billion.

Two leading liquidity machines on Solana (SOL) — Raydium (RAY) and Jupiter (JUP) DeFis — are responsible for over 50% of this massive SOL liquidity amount.