Solana Foundation Puts Talent and Capital at the Center of Its Growth Strategy

Highlights:

• Solana Foundation says attracting top talent and capital remains central to growing the network’s ecosystem and competition.
• Lily Liu says the Foundation supports open competition instead of choosing which Solana projects should become winners.
• Liu says Solana is backing multiple perpetual futures builders as fully on-chain DeFi development continues across the ecosystem.

The Solana Foundation has outlined two main priorities for supporting the Solana ecosystem: attracting top talent and bringing more capital to the network. The Foundation shared the message on X on August 11, after Solana Foundation President Lily Liu explained the strategy in an August 10 post.

Liu said the Foundation’s work centers on two closely linked goals. “Everything the Foundation does rolls up to two objectives: 1/ attract the best talent to Solana, 2/ attract capital to Solana,” she wrote. She added that capital helps attract talented builders, while strong teams can bring more investment and users into the ecosystem.

1. attract the best talent to Solana
2. attract capital to Solana https://t.co/PxKPdU9as5

— Solana Foundation (@SolanaFndn) August 10, 2026

Solana Foundation Favors Open Competition Over “King Making”

Liu also pushed back against the idea that the Foundation should choose a small number of favored projects. She described “king making” as short-sighted because it can limit competition and reduce the amount of talent and capital entering Solana.

At the same time, she questioned whether “credible neutrality” should guide every human decision. The concept generally favors avoiding special treatment. However, Liu argued that people in leadership roles still need to use judgment when supporting an ecosystem.

Instead, she said the Foundation follows an “open meritocracy” approach. Under that model, the Foundation can help create opportunities for different teams while allowing users, investors, and the wider market to determine which projects gain traction. Her comments also clarify the Foundation’s intended role. It aims to attract builders and funding to Solana rather than decide which company, protocol, or trading platform should become the winner.

Liu Says Solana Supports Multiple Perpetual Trading Teams

Liu also addressed competition in Solana’s perpetual futures, or “perps,” sector. Perps are crypto derivatives that allow traders to take long or short positions without a fixed expiration date. According to Liu, views about the sector can differ across the Solana ecosystem and within the Foundation itself. She said public discussions may sometimes show only part of those views rather than the Foundation’s broader position.

Liu rejected the claim that only one team can build fully on-chain perpetual trading on Solana. She said several teams have taken on the challenge in recent months and stressed that fully on-chain systems remain difficult to build. She also said the Foundation has supported diversity among perps builders through initiatives including its public perps program and Frontier Traders.

Frontier Traders Supports Solana’s Push for More Activity

The Solana Foundation launched Frontier Traders on June 17 to support active traders and market makers across the Solana ecosystem. The program offers trading rebates, trading campaigns, global events, and other benefits designed to increase activity on the Solana network.

Frontier Traders also supports Liu’s broader goal of attracting more capital, users, and developers to Solana. Higher trading activity can improve market liquidity and bring more users to Solana-based platforms. At the same time, stronger competition among developers could encourage more teams to build new trading products and applications on the network.

Liu ended by stressing that the Foundation does not decide which projects succeed. Its role, she said, is to attract strong teams and capital to Solana and give them room to compete. Ultimately, “the market does.”