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Anatoly Yakovenko floated a pretty wild idea. The Solana co-founder wants to expand SOL’s total supply, use the new tokens to acquire a company, then run that company’s revenue back into buying and burning SOL. It’s a tidy loop on paper. In practice, it’s a mess.
He put the concept out on August 15, framing it as something more useful than just trimming inflation. The pitch: revenue from whatever business Solana acquires goes toward purchasing SOL off the market and burning it, which could push value back toward holders. Burn enough, and the dilution from minting new tokens theoretically reverses itself. But as of August 18, there’s no formal Solana Governance Proposal — no SGP, no SIMD filing, nothing on-chain. The idea lives in the discussion layer. That’s it.
Governance Can’t Actually Do This Yet
Solana’s governance setup is built for protocol changes. It’s not built for corporate acquisitions. To even get a proposal moving, a validator vote account needs at least 100,000 SOL staked. From there, voting opens when 15% of active stake backs it. Two-thirds of decisive stake has to approve before anything passes. Delegators can override their validator’s vote, which adds another wrinkle. But even if all that goes smoothly, Solana’s governance framework doesn’t currently have a mechanism to authorize buying a company. Full stop.
Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius, basically laughed at the logistics. His take — sarcastic, but not wrong — was that getting validators to agree on how to run a company would be a nightmare. And he’s kind of right. The governance materials don’t name a legal buyer. They don’t define who signs a purchase agreement, who manages the acquired assets, who directs the revenue. Those roles just don’t exist in any document.
The Solana Foundation sits in Zug. Solana Labs operates separately. Neither is clearly positioned in the governance materials as a buyer or operator for any acquisition. That split probably made sense when the two entities were just coordinating on protocol development. For something like this, it’s a serious problem. You can’t close an acquisition without a legal entity on the paperwork.
The Supply Math and the Burn Gap
Here’s the part that stings for holders. If freshly minted SOL goes to a seller, total supply goes up. Holders who don’t receive any of those new tokens get diluted — at least until the burn cycle kicks in and starts pulling supply back down. Whether the burns ever fully offset the initial issuance depends entirely on how much revenue the acquired company generates. And since no target company has been named, that number is basically unknowable right now.
The fee-burn data sitting in a separate proposal — SIMD-0553 — gives some rough scale. Solana burns around 648 SOL per day from signature fees. Daily inflation runs at roughly 60,000 SOL. That’s a gap of about 92-to-1. Revenue from one acquired company would need to be enormous to close that, or even make a visible dent. SIMD-0553 doesn’t touch acquisition mechanics at all, so the two proposals aren’t really talking to each other yet.
And without a formal proposal that covers both the governance side and the legal side simultaneously, control over the whole thing stays unresolved. Validators and delegators can signal what they want. They can’t sign contracts. They can’t appoint a board. They can’t direct a company’s cash flows. Those are legal actions, and the current framework simply doesn’t hand anyone that authority.
What’s Actually Missing
Pretty much everything operational. No target company. No legal buyer identified. No acquisition process defined. No clarity on who selects the target or who manages it post-purchase. The SIMD process — which handles technical implementation and activation — would need to be navigated in full before any of this touches reality. That’s multiple layers of approval, technical refinement, and probably legal restructuring of how Solana’s entities relate to each other.
Yakovenko’s concept isn’t obviously bad. Returning value to SOL holders through a revenue-generating acquisition is at least creative. But creative and executable are two different things. Right now, the proposal is missing the legal entity, the acquisition mechanism, the operational structure, and the formal on-chain submission. Validators can want it. Delegators can signal support. Neither group has the authority to make it happen under existing rules.
SIMD-0553 puts daily burns at 648 SOL against 60,000 SOL of daily inflation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly did Anatoly Yakovenko propose for Solana?
Yakovenko proposed minting new SOL to purchase a company, then using that company’s revenue to buy and burn SOL — potentially returning value to holders over time.
Is there a formal governance proposal for this acquisition plan?
No. As of August 18, no formal Solana Governance Proposal or SIMD proposal for any acquisition had been filed.
How much SOL does Solana currently burn versus issue daily?
Per SIMD-0553, Solana burns roughly 648 SOL per day from signature fees, while daily inflation runs at around 60,000 SOL.
Why It Matters
This proposal raises significant questions about governance and ownership within the Solana ecosystem, particularly as it contemplates minting more tokens to fund acquisitions. The idea hinges on the community's acceptance of altering the tokenomics of SOL, which could impact investor confidence and market perceptions of inflation control. As Solana continues to navigate competitive pressures in the blockchain space, the success of such initiatives will depend on how well they align with the interests of stakeholders and the broader market ecosystem.
