Solana said to be ‘more decentralized than people think,’ but there’s more

Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) firm Unstoppable Finance argued that Solana (SOL) is more decentralized than what people show it to be. However, there’s another side that believes that the blockchain platform is more centralized.

In a blog post, the DeFi firm laid out its arguments, citing the blockchain network's active validator count, Nakamoto coefficient and its support for validator hardware which is often argued to be expensive, as reasons for the network’s decentralization.

According to the post, Solana's validator count is much higher than most other chains except for Ethereum (ETH). Additionally, the DeFi company points out that Solana’s Nakamoto coefficient, a metric that measures the distribution of staked tokens and decentralization, is much higher than protocols like Cosmos (ATOM) and Near Protocol (NEAR).

Regarding the criticisms that Solana’s validator hardware is expensive, Unstoppable Finance argued that Solana already created a server rental program that deals with the issue. Despite the arguments in favor of Solana’s decentralization, some community members cannot be convinced that the platform is decentralized.

Twitter user wles_teez believes that Solana's network outages are not the main problem. The community member thinks that the problem is that the network is "too centralized," giving only a few the influence to shut down and restart the network. The Twitter user highlighted that without decentralization, the network is just the same as any traditional system.

Related: What decentralization? Solana lender Solend approves whale wallet takeover to avoid DeFi implosion

A month ago, a Reddit user who claimed to be a software developer called Solana a scam, comparing it to an SQL database implemented by traditional finance. The Redditor wrote that if a central group can roll back a ledger, then it's similar to centralized finance firms.

In June, a lending protocol based in Solana initiated a controversial move to take over the wallet of a whale to avoid liquidations. The move received huge pushback from the community, calling it out. Eventually, the team backpedaled and focused on other solutions that doesn’t require taking over the wallet.