Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has emerged as a vocal advocate for agentic coding tools, revealing how deeply they’ve transformed his approach to software development. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Yakovenko shared that he’s increasingly relying on AI to handle complex coding tasks, allowing him to step back and focus on higher-level strategy. “AI has been a great force multiplier for somebody who’s an expert,” he said, reflecting on his more than 15 years of experience building software. “Now I can just watch Claude churning through its thing and I can almost smell when it’s going off the rails.” He added with a smile that if he appears distracted during meetings, it’s likely because he’s monitoring the AI’s progress. “If people are in a meeting with me and I’m not paying attention,” he said, “it’s because I’m watching Claude.” Yakovenko, who co-founded the Solana blockchain protocol, has seen remarkable success this year despite broader struggles in the cryptocurrency market. The network recently reported $2.85 billion in annual revenue, largely driven by activity on crypto trading platforms built on its infrastructure. Even more notable was the launch of Solana’s first exchange-traded fund (ETF), introduced by crypto asset manager Bitwise just one day before Yakovenko took the stage. The ETF attracted nearly $70 million in inflows on its first day — a strong signal of growing institutional interest. Onstage, Yakovenko credited the momentum to increasing acceptance of cryptocurrency within traditional finance. “If you are a back-office finance person, you actually get crypto much, much faster,” he said. “Finance people deal with settlement risk all the time. They deal with banking risk all the time.” He argued that the efficiency and transparency of blockchain technology align closely with the needs of institutional investors. However, the rise of Solana as a dominant platform has also drawn criticism, particularly over the proliferation of tokens like Trumpcoin, which has reportedly funneled an estimated $350 million to former President Donald Trump. Critics have raised concerns about the potential for such coins to facilitate public bribery, especially following Trump’s pardons of high-profile crypto figures including Tron founder Justin Sun and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. Despite these controversies, Yakovenko emphasized that Solana operates as an open protocol with no central authority. “I could send you an email with a link to Trumpcoin or Fartcoin,” he explained, “and both of those are protocols, both the email and the underlying protocol that creates that market.” He stressed that while Solana provides the infrastructure, it does not control or endorse the tokens built on top of it.