Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, is a big fan of proxy encryption

The advent of agent programming tools has been a game-changer for software engineers across the industry — but for Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, it seems to have reached a particularly rough patch. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Yakovenko said he has become increasingly comfortable taking a back seat to software development tasks.

“AI has been a huge force multiplier for an expert person,” said Yakovenko, describing his experience with agent programming after more than fifteen years of software development. “Now I can just watch Claude flip through his stuff and I can smell when he goes off the rails.”

He continued: “If people are in a meeting with me and I’m not paying attention, it’s because I’m watching Claude.”

Yakovenko, co-founder of the Solana cryptocurrency protocol, has seen tremendous success this year, despite the difficulties many cryptocurrencies have faced. Announce the system $2.85 billion in annual revenue Earlier this month, largely supported by cryptocurrency trading platforms. Even more impressive is Solana’s first cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund (or ETF), which was launched the day before Yakovenko took the stage. The fund was launched by crypto asset manager Bitwise Nearly $70 million in flows In one day.

On stage, Yakovenko attributed the success to the growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies, especially in the traditional finance industry. “If you’re a finance person in the back office, you’ll actually get access to crypto much faster,” Yakovenko said. “Finance people deal with settlement risk all the time. They deal with banking risk all the time.”

During the same period, cryptocurrencies drew significant new criticism because they allowed public bribery, especially regarding Solana’s Trump Coin. The coin has been drawn An estimated $350 million for the presidentThis is what critics see A form of bribery — especially in the wake of Trump’s high-profile pardon of TRON founder Justin Sun Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

But as long as Solana is an open protocol, Yakovenko has little control over the coins he hosts. “I can send you an email with a link to Trumpcoin or Fartcoin, both of which are protocols, email and the underlying protocol that creates this market,” Yakovenko explained on stage.