Solana is among the most controversial and embattled chains in crypto, however one of many causes it continues to thrive regardless of all of the obstacles is its cult-like group.
Mert Mumtaz, the Helius Lab CEO is a hardcore member of that group with the battle scars to point out for it. He proved his love for the chain once more earlier in the present day when he rose to Solana’s protection following the catastrophe of the Libra meme token which reportedly allowed $4.4B to be extracted from the ecosystem by grifters.
Mert has phrases for these tagging Solana as a haven of scams
Mert was not having the negativity triggered by the Libra token rugpull on Solana and took to X, previously Twitter, to share his opinions.
So far as Mert is worried, a lot of these complaining about scams on Solana are maxis from a sequence that has considerably much less exercise than Solana. In a single publish, he attributed all of the noise to “cope” which he referred to as “probably the most addictive drug.”
you aren’t upset that there are scams on Solana
you’re upset that your chain has no exercise
“New York Metropolis has extra crime than my farm in Alabama” shouldn’t be a dunk
— mert | helius.dev (@0xMert_) February 15, 2025
“Crypto’s historical past is nearly all hypothesis — L1 cash, ICOs, NFTs, L2 cash, and now memecoins,” he wrote. “The operate is identical, the shape is completely different, it’s uncooked brainworms to assume “the validator shopper that’s named Solana is encouraging scams.”
Mert mentioned all Solana does is make “property quick and low-cost to maneuver,” and reminded everybody that “each ecosystem has shitcoins and has all the time had immense hypothesis.”
Mert urged those that have an issue with Solana to channel their power into constructing another as an alternative of resorting to “limitless ethical posturing to hate-farm some dopamine hits from pessimists.”
He additionally mocked Ethereum maxis, a lot of whom have used the Libra rug to name out Solana as a rug chain, for sometimes glazing their chain’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, who just lately agreed that the L1 he created wants increased gasoline limits.
After all, Mert’s protection didn’t go with out responses from trolls, which solely appeared to piss him off extra. In some unspecified time in the future, he shared a publish that noticed him reveal he was requested why he was “enabling scams” despite the fact that, in keeping with him, he by no means shills tokens regardless of quite a few day by day temptations and solely focuses on “scaling the tech, shitposting, and serving to startups/establishments undertake crypto.”
Notably, Bitcoin and USDT on the Tron blockchain have confronted the identical accusations as Mert Mumtaz and Solana prior to now, with detractors implicating the tasks for the character of customers’ actions.
What occurred to the Libra token?
The Libra meme was a token that Argentina’s president Javier Milei had initially promoted in a now-deleted publish on X. It was linked to the Viva La Libertad Challenge, which claimed to have plans to assist Argentina’s financial system by funding small companies.
Now-deleted X publish of Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, endorsing the Libra meme token launch on Solana. Supply: @i_bot404 (X/Twitter)
The president took down his tweets after allegedly studying extra particulars and confessed that he had did not conduct correct due diligence earlier than endorsing the mission.
“I initially supported a supposed non-public enterprise with which I’ve no connection. After turning into conscious of the main points, I made a decision to discontinue spreading the phrase,” he mentioned.
The announcement brought about panic amongst holders who had rushed in to purchase Libra, pushing its market capitalization to $4.5 billion after Milei’s preliminary endorsement.
As doubts concerning the mission’s legitimacy unfold, the token’s value tumbled from $4.50 to $0.50, and buying and selling quantity hit $1.1 billion in only a few hours earlier than the sell-off intensified.
On-chain evaluation instantly turned up a purple flag as blockchain knowledge revealed that 82% of Libra’s complete provide was unfold amongst just a few wallets.
Based on on-chain analytics agency Bubblemaps, the mission’s builders sped up the demise of the token as a result of they withdrew $87 million from liquidity swimming pools. Chainalysis additionally identified that the deal with that created the Libra token and the one holding a serious portion of its provide, gave the impression to be managed by a single non-public key, moderately than a multi-signature setup, the safer choice.
The Libra token rug was solely profitable due to the participation of Milei, who endorsed it with out doing sufficient analysis. Nevertheless, this isn’t the primary time Milei has gotten concerned with a crypto rip-off.
In 2021, he endorsed CoinX, which promised huge returns by AI-powered buying and selling however was revealed to be an alleged Ponzi scheme. Milei later confronted litigation for losses between 30 and 40 million Pesos ($300,000) after regulators shut down CoinX.
