Solana co-founder dismisses Cardano's plan to build a BTC treasury as 'DUMB'

Anatoly Yakovenko, the Chief Executive at Solana Labs, has rejected the idea of altcoin teams like Cardano buying and holding Bitcoin for their users. The CEO explained that individuals could and should buy and hold Bitcoin alone. Yakovenko added that altcoin teams should buy low-risk assets like Treasury bills. 

The CEO of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko, dismissed the plans of altcoin teams holding Bitcoin for their users. Yakovenko claimed that individuals did not require a team to invest in Bitcoin.

The Solana Labs top executive explained that individuals could and should hold Bitcoin for themselves. The CEO recommended that altcoin projects buy and hold enough short-term assets, such as U.S. T-bills, to cover three years of operating expenses.

Cardano plans to convert $100 million of ADA into BTC

This is so dumb. Projects should keep 18-36 months of post kill list runway in short term tbills but that’s about it. Why would anyone want a team to buy and hold bitcoin for them when they can do it themselves? Why pay for all those coconuts.

— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) June 16, 2025

Yakovenko’s comment came after Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Cardano, said his firm would consider converting $100 million worth of ADA into BTC and other stable assets.

According to Hoskinson, the proposal wouldn’t hurt his firm’s ecosystem. The Cardano co-founder added that the plan would help grow its treasury with time through yield. Hoskinson argued that yields from BTC would help the team buy back more ADA. 

Hoskinson explained that if the plan succeeded, they would continue the strategy on an annualized basis for 5 to 10 years. The Cardano executive expressed his belief that the strategy had the potential to grow to over a billion dollars.

Hoskinson previously said Bitcoin did not have the right to be considered the only sound money blockchain. The Cardano executive recently stated that the firm would not allow the maxi and the Bitcoin ecosystem to take the lead. Hoskinson argued that the biggest threat to BTC’s dominance was and would always be Cardano. 

The crypto community has weighed in on the matter. Jeff Park of Bitwise Invest stated that subpar altcoins ditching their digital assets to create a Bitcoin treasury was not on his 2025 bingo card.

DeFi platform Alva argued that Cardano’s idea of turning $100 million worth of ADA into BTC was a bit risky. Alva, however, claimed that the move could strengthen Cardano’s position in decentralized finance. 

Cardano joins Polkadot in the BTC strategy race

Cardano’s plan to convert some of its ADA into Bitcoin and other stable assets came barely a week after the Polkadot community revealed plans to introduce a crypto reserve. Members of the Polkadot community have suggested the establishment of a BTC reserve for the Polkadot Treasury.

The proposal intends to change 500,000 DOT into Threshold BTC (tBTC) in a year with the help of Hydration’s rolling DCA feature. Polkadot has previously explored diversification by introducing stablecoins like USDT and USDC. 

Polkadot community members said they want the capital to be offered as liquidity to Omnipool so that the funds could be put to use. The community members also suggested an extra 1,000 DOT be reserved for transaction fees. The proposers revealed that Bitcoin was highlighted in the main diversification proposal as an asset that could help reduce volatility and also maintain the value of the Polkadot Treasury. The Polkadot community members proposed tBTC for its decentralization, transparency, and liquidity. 

The proposal recommends selling a fixed amount of DOT for every trade instead of buying a fixed amount of tBTC. The members agreed that the total number of DOT tokens would first be converted into a yield-bearing collateral token and distributed into the Hydration Borrow functionality.

The proposers revealed that the Polkadot Treasury will gain yield on the dormant DOT while also improving the DOT supply available for borrowing. The proposal outlined that portions of 0.005 tBTC will be introduced as liquidity into the Hydration Omnipool following a brief accumulation period. The community anticipates that this approach will contribute to diversifying the Polkadot Treasury’s holdings.

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