The co-founder of Solana Labs Anatoly Yakovenko, started a feud on X, claiming Ethereum’s Aave was running on ‘vanity metrics’. Yakovenko praised Kamino as the superior protocol, as Solana apps aimed for profitability first.
The co-founder of Solana Labs Anatoly Yakovenko started an argument on X with Stani Kulechov, co-founder of Aave (AAVE). Yakovenko claimed profitability and economic activity were more important than value and assets under management.
Kulechov was the first to claim Solana’s DeFi is a copycat of Ethereum, especially the approach of Aave to create lending vaults.
The state of Solana DeFi:
– Copycat Aave’s old tech
– Slap a half baked UI
– Restrict also UK users from using it
– Solana foundation president calls it a better productExpect people to buy the bluff. https://t.co/wbeDnwlBSu
— Stani.eth (@StaniKulechov) February 10, 2025
Yakovenko still claims Kamino is superior, due to producing higher fees based on its value locked. However, Kulechov replied that Kamino achieves this by taking a bigger cut from users. Yakovenko kept claiming Solana’s mission was to make its apps profitable, reflecting the real demand and economic activity on-chain.
The discussion of Aave and the potential of lending on Solana started over the weekend, as Nansen’s founder Alex Svanevik suggested the app may migrate to another chain. Currently, Aave is prioritizing its version on Base. Both Ethereum and Solana have their native app collections, but the question of Aave accelerated the chain wars and rivalry.
Due to its reward structure for validators, Solana’s network is heavily subsidized and has one of the biggest overall expenses for each dollar in app revenues. Solana spends $7 in subsidies for each $1 produced by apps. The recent boom in meme token trading is improving the ratio.
Solana currently surpasses Ethereum’s fees on a weekly basis. Solana’s L1 chain produced $28.91M in weekly fees, mostly due to the need for priority fees and bribes. Ethereum produced $19.8M in weekly fees, while going through one of the slow periods with extremely low gas fees.
Solana DeFi produces fees despite lower TVL
In terms of economic activity, Solana generates more L1 fees, which do not go to app teams. Ethereum’s fees have fallen significantly, leading to record low gas prices. Both chains hold peak crypto economic activity based on their apps, but Solana’s founder claims the chain is more lively and more apps are becoming profitable.
The community pointed out Kamino was more suited to Solana’s active trading. Users also asked why there was no version of Aave on Solana. Currently, lending protocol Sky is trying to launch its version on Solana, though Aave has shown no similar interest.
Aave V3 currently leads in terms of total value locked, at $19.15B, which also signals the protocol’s levels of activity and the inclusion of whales. Kamino carries $2.36B TVL.
Based on the value locked, Kamino achieved $15M in monthly revenues, while Aave reached $56.88M. Yakovenko claimed those numbers showed Kamino was more efficient, achieving better income per value locked. Kamino has more than $3.52B in total deposits and $1.4B in total loans. The amount was split in over 158K loans, for a relatively small average amount of lending and borrowing.
One of the reasons for Kamino’s performance is the bigger Solana user base, upward of 5M daily active wallets. Some of Kamino’s users also crossed over to the meme token market, making for highly active loans and a high turnover. Kamino was one of the main sources of liquidity for tokens like DogWifHat (WIF), which relied on lending for additional trading volumes. Combined with higher fees, this led to an overall positive performance for Kamino.
Ethereum DeFi on the other hand served mostly whales and early adopters, looking for vaults to park their holdings. A big part of Ethereum’s DeFi aims to tap the value of idle, staked ETH, which builds up a bulk of upfront stored value. However, the value was often mismatched when it came to economic activity. DeFi on Ethereum was recovering more slowly and traders were more cautious of liquidations during the latest bull market.
Solana currently has limited liquid staking and liquid re-staking, which is one of the biggest sources of DeFi liquidity. On the other hand, Solana carries $12.36B in stablecoins, which are actively used for trading. Despite Yakovenko’s idea that TVL is part of ‘vanity metrics’, Solana’s available liquidity remains key for its success as a chain for memes and fast app development.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/solanas-yakovenko-claims-kamino-is-better-economic-value-in-feud-with-aaves-founder/