Lily Liu says Solana Foundation will not "make kings" and leaves perpetuals race to the market

Solana Foundation President Lily Liu said the foundation’s work is centered on two goals: bringing top talent and capital to Solana. In her view, talent and capital depend on each other and neither can be treated as secondary. She also pushed back against what she described as a "king-making" approach, calling it short-sighted and self-limiting. Liu said the foundation follows an open, merit-based approach that encourages competition rather than picking winners. She added that "credible neutrality" may work in code, but is not sufficient when applied to human decisions that require judgment. On that basis, she argued that no one stands above the market and that outcomes should be decided through competition. Addressing perpetual contracts, Liu said the foundation has consistently supported builder diversity. She pointed to the public perpetuals initiative and the frontier trader program as part of its recent efforts. She also rejected claims that only one team on Solana can build fully onchain perpetuals, saying several teams have recently challenged that view. According to Liu, a fully onchain architecture carries greater value for DeFi and for Solana’s future, while the market — not the foundation — will determine which teams succeed.