Original Title: Solana Can't Host Conferences Anymore
Original Author: @abhitejxyz
Translated by: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: In December 2025, after the conclusion of Solana Breakpoint 2025 in Abu Dhabi, entrepreneur Abhitej, who has long been involved in the Solana ecosystem, wrote this article. As a co-founder of Filament Finance and 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 firsthand experiences at Breakpoint.
The title may seem sharp, but it is not a denial of the event; rather, it serves as a reminder from within the ecosystem: as Breakpoint has evolved from an early developer-led gathering to a global event alongside the F1 Grand Prix and Bitcoin MENA, with institutions, capital, and grand narratives pouring in, are the builders who are truly "writing code with their heads down" being diluted in the process?
Unlike external macro assessments, Abhitej focuses on those hard-to-quantify yet decisive factors that shape the ecosystem—whether the culture remains open, whether the stage still belongs to builders, and whether participation remains low-barrier. The article does not attempt to provide standard answers, but it reminds us that the vitality of Solana has never been on the stage or in the narratives, but in the developers who are continuously, quietly, and authentically building products around the world.
Here is the original text:
I attended the first Breakpoint held in Lisbon, and four years later, I found myself in Abu Dhabi for the latest edition. During this time, industry giants have fallen, the price of SOL has experienced multiple "roller coaster" rides, 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 volume, application revenue, and DEX trading volume.
Having 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 highlights Solana's dominant position across multiple dimensions recently.
All of this is happening against a backdrop that is extremely harsh for retail investors. Arbitrageurs have squeezed value to near its limits, altcoins have generally underperformed the market, and net developer inflow has dropped to a low point. What the industry truly lacks is a spark of optimism, something that can remind people that the crypto world itself is still beautiful.
I believe Breakpoint has ignited that spark.
When I walked into the Abu Dhabi Solana Breakpoint venue, the first feeling I had was not excitement, but a sense of a movement in progress.
Not the kind of noisy, chaotic hustle. More like an undercurrent. A flowing force.
It didn’t feel like entering a conference. There was no tension, no deliberate social pressure, and no anxiety of "I must be in the right room at the right time." It felt more like a festival, a place where people were not there to "extract value" from each other, but to genuinely celebrate "creation."
People were smiling, talking, and moving freely. Developers, creators, founders, institutions—everyone found their place, and the overall balance was maintained.
This sense of harmony was evident from the start. No single group was overly amplified: institutions did not dominate the narrative; creators were not treated as mascots; founders were not elevated to unattainable heights. Everyone appeared approachable.
And this, in itself, is quite rare.
The longer I stayed at Breakpoint, the more I felt that this was not a coincidence, but a deliberately designed outcome.
The agenda was not a top-down information dump: five-minute lightning talks, debates, product demos, dialogues. Short, sharp, and high in information density. It allowed more people to be seen, rather than letting a few dominate 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; it was gradually explored over years of practice to discover "what truly works."
A brief exchange I had with @paarugsethi from Superteam India was enough to make one realize how deeply the Solana ecosystem thinks about culture and the founder community.
Dissolving Elitism
But if there is one area where Solana excels compared to most ecosystems, it is that it has successfully dissolved elitism.
There is no invisible hierarchy of "only a few voices matter" here. As long as you have genuinely created something valuable, even if it is small in scale, you can find 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 characteristic became clear: within the Solana ecosystem, there exists a shared sense of direction. It is not a dogmatic consensus, but a state of "everyone moving forward together." There are navigators, signal sources, and people seen as directional coordinates by others. Because of this, the ecosystem does not easily fragment.
In many ecosystems, people fight their own battles, narratives conflict, gaps widen, and everyone endlessly debates "what should be done," yet they are reluctant to accept "what is working."
Solana does things differently. If speculation is effective, it is accepted. If it aligns with the behavior of the new generation of the internet, it is studied rather than shamed. There is no moral superiority, nor is there any glossing over of issues. Even memecoins, despite the chaos and predatory nature of that phase, are seen as an accelerated experiment, a stress test for the internet capital market.
The system has collapsed before, and some took the opportunity to arbitrage, but the lessons were genuinely absorbed. Solana did not pretend that all of this never happened; instead, it distilled insights in a "whole ecosystem" manner. This acceptance, in turn, freed up space for innovation rather than accumulating resentment.
The most prominent feeling this year is the extreme builder-first focus of Breakpoint. The market has cooled, prices are no longer frenzied, and the crowd of "overnight hundredfold" gains has noticeably diminished. Yet it is precisely at this time that true builders begin to shine.
DeFi appears more mature; discussions about infrastructure 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 chose Solana as its tokenized infrastructure; Phantom supports consumer-facing interface experiences; Phoenix perpetual contracts, Prop AMM, new market designs; experiments in AI, robotics, and privacy; hackathons, Superteam projects, and those still rough but real early ideas. People come to listen to shares to learn, not to ask, "How can this token pump?"
This shift in energy is extremely important. It makes the entire conference feel solid, honest, and product-centered.
If I had to point out one discomfort, it would be that there are still some narrow mindsets within the ecosystem—"if it's not Solana-only, it's not worth paying attention to."
This mindset 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.
Ironically, Solana does not need to shout loudly. Anyone who walks into Breakpoint can feel it directly. This ecosystem does not need to mock each other online. Products, culture, builders, momentum—they are already loud enough.
A "Festival"
This brings me back to the initial conclusion: Solana is no longer suitable for "hosting conferences." Conferences are one-way, static, and bounded. What Solana is doing aligns more 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, and more diverse. Every corner is adding new flavors to this emerging internet.
Breakpoint 2025 is one of the best conferences I have attended so far, clearly showcasing the direction Solana is heading.
P.S.: In my view, choosing Abu Dhabi as the venue is one of the important reasons why Breakpoint 2025 is so special.
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