Solana project co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko was concerned about the outflow of blockchain developers from the United States, advising local legislators to better study the industry to regulate it.
“I meet up-and-coming entrepreneurs every day who want to create America’s next great tech innovation, but don’t know how to build a compliant crypto company. […] Faced with the choice of staying in the US or pursuing their dreams, more and more founders [проектов] decide to leave,” he wrote.
According to analyst Elliptic, cited by Yakovenko, in 2018, 42% of Web3 developers were based in the States, and by 2022 the figure had dropped to 29%.
3/ First of all, US is losing its lead (from 42% share in 2018 to 29% in 2022).
The grand majority of new and existing crypto devs are in the US However, crypto is becoming more global and decentralized.
So, which regions are accelerating faster? pic.twitter.com/7OBFNstZtT
— Enrique ⚡ (@eherrerosj) March 1, 2023
The head of Solana recalled his childhood in Ukraine, where “access to assets and information was controlled with an iron fist.” After moving to the United States, he realized the “limitless possibilities of the country”, where it was possible to realize the idea of “an interoperable global network that no person or organization could turn off.”
However, Yakovenko noted that young crypto projects are afraid to enter the market, since the local regulatory landscape hinders even multi-billion dollar companies.
He also acknowledged the frequent incidence of scams in the industry, but stressed that the economy should not punish the entire industry for the actions of its “worst elements.”
“Imagine if Google was founded in Russia and Reddit was founded in China. How different would the Internet look today? For the United States to attract and retain the best talent in the new digital world, we need a strong regulatory framework that protects consumers and encourages entrepreneurship,” added the Solana co-founder.
To summarize, Anatoly Yakovenko called on the US Congress to quickly create a legislative framework for the cryptocurrency market.
Let us recall that in September, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the United States one of the “worst places” to launch Web3 startups. He singled out Singapore, the UK, the UAE and Switzerland as alternatives with smart regulatory policies.
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