Why is Solana no longer suitable for hosting conferences?

Original Title: Solana Can't Host Conferences Anymore
Original Author: @abhitejxyz
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In December 2025, after Solana Breakpoint 2025 concluded in Abu Dhabi, Abhitej, an entrepreneur deeply involved in the Solana ecosystem, wrote this article. As the co-founder of Filament Finance and now a core builder at Bento.fun, he reflects on whether builders are still truly at the center after the conference has scaled up, based on his multiple firsthand experiences at Breakpoint.

The title may sound sharp, but it is not a denial of the grand event; rather, it is a reminder from within the ecosystem: as Breakpoint evolves from an early developer-led gathering into a global event held alongside the F1 Grand Prix and Bitcoin MENA, with institutions, capital, and grand narratives constantly pouring in, are the real "heads-down coders" being diluted in the process?

Unlike macro judgments from an external perspective, Abhitej focuses on those hard-to-quantify yet decisive factors for the ecosystem's direction—whether the culture remains open, whether the stage still belongs to builders, and whether participation is still low-barrier. The article does not attempt to provide a standard answer, but it reminds us: Solana's vitality has never been about the stage or the narrative, but about the developers around the world who quietly and genuinely build products.

The following is the original text:

I attended the first Breakpoint held in Lisbon, and four years later, I came to Abu Dhabi for the latest edition. In between, industry giants have fallen, SOL's price has gone through rollercoaster rides more than once, and the memecoin frenzy has repeatedly tested the resilience of the entire ecosystem.

But as the Solana ecosystem began preparing for Breakpoint 2025, it had already established its position:

Leading in several core metrics such as transaction count, application revenue, and DEX trading volume

Possessing the most culturally perceptive and user-centric ecosystem atmosphere

Becoming the strongest, or at least one of the strongest, builder ecosystems

@joeljohn's article "Most used chain based on what?" also points out Solana's recent dominance across multiple dimensions.

All of this happened against the backdrop of an extremely harsh cycle for retail investors. Arbitrageurs have squeezed value to the limit, altcoins have generally underperformed the market, and net developer inflow has dropped to a low point. What this industry truly lacks is a spark of optimism, something to remind people that the crypto world itself is still beautiful.

I believe Breakpoint is precisely what ignited that spark.

When I walked into the Abu Dhabi Solana Breakpoint venue, the first thing I felt was not excitement, but a movement in progress.
Not the kind of noisy, chaotic bustle. More like an undercurrent. A force in motion.

It didn't feel like entering a conference. There was no tension, no forced social pressure, and no anxiety of "I must be in the right room at the right time." It was more like a festival, a place where people come not to "extract value" from each other, but to truly celebrate "creation."

People were smiling, talking, and moving freely. Developers, creators, founders, institutions—everyone had their place, and the overall balance was maintained.

This sense of harmony was obvious from the start. No single group was excessively amplified: institutions did not dominate the narrative; creators were not treated as mascots; founders were not put on unreachable pedestals. Everyone seemed approachable.

And this, in itself, is very rare.

The longer I stayed at Breakpoint, the more I realized that none of this was accidental, but the result of deliberate design.

The agenda was not a top-down information dump: five-minute lightning talks, debates, product demos, conversations. Short, sharp, high information density. More people were given visibility, rather than a few dominating the stage repeatedly. You could clearly feel that this was not a one-off inspiration, but the result of long-term iteration.

Breakpoint was not achieved overnight, but gradually explored through years of practice to find "what truly works."

A brief conversation with @paarugsethi from Superteam India was enough to make one realize how deeply the Solana ecosystem thinks about culture and founder communities.

Dissolving Elitism

But if there's one thing Solana does better than most ecosystems, it's this: it has successfully dissolved elitism.

There is no invisible hierarchy here where "only a few voices matter." As long as you truly create something valuable, even on a small scale, you can get a platform to showcase it.

This openness changes everything: it reduces fear, invites more people to participate, and ultimately creates momentum. And momentum compounds over time.

After talking to more and more people, another feature became clear: within the Solana ecosystem, there is a shared sense of direction. Not a dogmatic consensus, but a state of "everyone moving forward together." There are leaders, signal sources, and people regarded as directional coordinates by others. Because of this, the ecosystem does not easily fracture.

In many ecosystems, people fight their own battles, narratives conflict, gaps widen, and everyone endlessly debates "what should be," but are slow to accept "what is working."

Solana does things differently. If speculation works, it is accepted. If it fits the behavior of the new generation of the internet, it is studied, not shamed. There is no moral superiority here, nor is there any whitewashing. Even memecoins, despite that phase being chaotic and predatory, were seen as an accelerated experiment, a stress test for the internet capital market.

The system has crashed, some have arbitraged, and the lessons have been genuinely absorbed. Solana does not pretend none of this happened, but instead, as an "entire ecosystem," it distills the cognition. This acceptance, in turn, creates space for innovation rather than accumulating resentment.

The most prominent feeling this year is Breakpoint's extreme builder-first approach. The market has cooled, prices are no longer frenzied, and the "100x overnight" crowd has noticeably decreased. But it is precisely at times like this that the real builders begin to shine.

DeFi appears more mature; infrastructure discussions return to reality: predictability of block space, latency optimization, how to make application execution cheaper and more reliable.

You can see this change in specific products: Kalshi chooses Solana as its tokenization infrastructure; Phantom supports the consumer-facing interface experience; Phoenix perpetual contracts, Prop AMM, new market designs; experiments in AI, robotics, privacy; hackathons, Superteam projects, those still rough but real early ideas. People come to listen to share and learn, not to ask "how to pump this token."

This energy shift is extremely important. It makes the entire conference feel solid, honest, and product-centered.

If there is one discomfort, it is that there are still some narrow-minded attitudes in the ecosystem—"if it's not Solana-only, it's not worth paying attention to."

This idea is not unique to Solana, but it shrinks the pie. The real opportunity is not to win a public chain war, but to reshape the entire tech stack. And that can only be achieved through collaboration, not posturing games.

Ironically: Solana doesn't need to shout. Anyone who walks into Breakpoint can feel it directly. This ecosystem doesn't need to mock each other online. Products, culture, builders, momentum—they are already loud enough.

A "Festival"

This brings me back to my initial conclusion: Solana is no longer suitable for "holding conferences." Conferences are one-way, static, and bounded. What Solana is doing is more in line with the native form of the new generation of the internet—a festival, a celebration that exists for builders. A space where culture, capital, experimental spirit, and belief collide.

And these "festivals" will only continue to grow: more vibrant, more immersive, more diverse. Every corner is adding new flavors to this emerging internet.

Breakpoint 2025 is one of the best conferences I have ever attended, and it clearly shows where Solana is heading.

P.S.: In my view, choosing Abu Dhabi as the venue is one of the key reasons why Breakpoint 2025 was so special.