Recently, I’ve been pondering a question: why do some blockchains survive while others fade away amid turbulence? On the surface, it seems to be about technology or price, but the core is actually governance. I’ve noticed that Solana’s story bears a striking resemblance to Singapore’s development history.

Both started from being abandoned. In August 1965, Lee Kuan Yew cried on TV—Singapore was expelled from the Malaysian Federation, becoming a small island nation with no hinterland, no resources, and no military. In November 2022, FTX went from the second-largest exchange to ruins within 72 hours, Solana’s TVL dropped over 75% in a week, and SOL fell from $32 to $8. Both stories began this way: a neglected small entity struggling to survive in a hostile environment.

Singapore has no oil, no minerals, and even freshwater must be imported from Malaysia. But it has one thing—geography. The Strait of Malacca handles a quarter of global maritime trade. Lee Kuan Yew quickly understood a principle: I don’t need to own resources; I just need to become the best node for resource flow.

Solana is the same. It lacks Bitcoin’s early-mover advantage and Ethereum’s narrative halo, but it offers extreme performance—400 milliseconds block time, theoretical TPS of 65,000, ultra-low transaction fees. These aren’t just technical specs; they’re a ticket in. High-frequency, small-value, large-volume on-chain activities—Solana was born for this.

But here’s a key turning point. Singapore’s rapid growth from the 70s to the 90s wasn’t just because of its reputation for “integrity and efficiency.” There’s a fact often overlooked in official narratives: at that time, many Southeast Asian countries—Indonesia under Suharto, the Marcos family in the Philippines, Myanmar’s military government—generated large amounts of “dirty” money needing “whitewashing.” Singapore provided an environment conducive to this: strict banking secrecy laws, efficient financial infrastructure, and an unspoken pragmatic attitude: “As long as you follow my rules, I won’t ask about your sources of funds.” It’s a delicate balance—accepting gray capital to build wealth, while never relaxing administrative efficiency and rule of law.

In 2023-2024, Solana’s Meme wave is, in some ways, like Singapore’s early acceptance of “not-so-clean” funds. From a purely technical or crypto perspective, it’s a disaster—Pump.fun allows anyone to create tokens in minutes, with no code or audits, resulting in rug pulls, sniper bots, and junk coins flooding the market. But if you understand it through Singapore’s historical lens, the logic is consistent:

Memes brought three things to Solana. First, real capital inflow—trading volume and fee income directly bolster validators’ economic model, stabilizing network operations. Second, user base—millions of new users engaged with Solana wallets (Phantom downloads surged during this period), initially attracted by gambling. Third, infrastructure stress testing—extreme transaction loads exposed the network’s real bottlenecks, accelerating the development of key infrastructure like Firedancer.

Singapore’s wisdom isn’t in “accepting gray capital” per se, but in “accepting gray capital while never stopping to build legitimate institutional foundations.” Temasek and GIC became among the top ten sovereign funds globally—no coincidence.

Similarly, Solana’s core isn’t the Meme wave itself, but whether it can, under the cover of Meme hype, push forward truly valuable foundational development.

Now, let’s discuss deeper governance issues. Singapore’s monetary policy is unique—it doesn’t primarily use interest rates but instead manages the Singapore dollar’s exchange rate within a band to regulate the economy. An appreciation band suppresses inflation and attracts capital; a depreciation band stimulates exports and maintains competitiveness. The core logic: money isn’t static; it must be dynamic and responsive. Excessive printing dilutes wealth and causes inflation; too much tightening stifles economic vitality. Good monetary policy is a continuous balancing act.

Solana’s tokenomics is undergoing a similar evolution. Early on, it was a phase of quantitative easing—8% annual inflation, decreasing by 15% each year, with new SOL used to pay staking rewards, essentially “fiscal spending” to attract validators. In 2023, a burn mechanism was introduced—50% of transaction base fees are permanently destroyed. When on-chain activity is sufficiently active, the burned SOL can approach or even surpass new issuance, making SOL truly deflationary.

But the problem is: Solana still lacks a truly dynamic, responsive monetary policy framework. Inflation rates decline mechanically along a preset curve; burn rates depend entirely on market activity, with no “smart regulation” mechanism like the Monetary Authority of Singapore. This is a deep governance issue—almost all public chains haven’t solved this: token issuance and destruction shouldn’t be fixed curves hardcoded into the code but should adjust dynamically based on the network’s “economic cycle.” When congestion occurs (economic overheating), the burn rate should increase to curb speculation; during downturns (economic recession), perhaps staking thresholds should be lowered, incentives increased. A mature blockchain economy needs not a fixed inflation curve but a “central bank” governance mechanism on-chain.

Here’s a rarely understood point: tokens don’t only appreciate because they’re burned; more importantly, it’s the governance system behind the tokens that matters.

Now, the most interesting part—public housing policy. Singapore’s real crisis at independence wasn’t poverty but ethnic division. Chinese make up 75%, Malays 15%, Indians 7%—three groups with different languages, beliefs, and mutual suspicion. The 1964 racial riots killed 23 people and injured hundreds. The harsh reality was: residents didn’t see themselves as “Singaporeans.” Chinese identified with Chinese culture, Malays with the Federation of Malaysia, Indians with India. No one truly felt a sense of “Singapore” as their own, let alone willing to sacrifice for it.

Lee Kuan Yew’s fundamental challenge was: how to get a group of distrustful people to live under one roof and be willing to maintain it?

The answer was HDB—public housing. It seemingly solved the housing problem, but the real genius was in the political logic behind it. Lee Kuan Yew once said honestly (roughly): “People who own assets in a place are more willing to maintain it.” Public housing policies achieved three strategic goals:

First, creating “stakeholders.” When you’re just a tenant, the city’s prosperity or decline doesn’t matter much—you can move anytime. But when you own a flat, your wealth is tied to the nation’s fate. Rising property prices increase your net worth; chaos devalues your assets. Every HDB owner becomes a “shareholder” in Singapore’s destiny.

Second, enforcing racial integration. This is the most underestimated part of HDB design. The Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP) enforces strict quotas: each community has upper limits for Chinese, Malay, and Indian residents, ensuring no single group dominates a neighborhood. Your neighbors are from different backgrounds. Kids play together downstairs, attend the same schools. After a generation, racial barriers gradually dissolve through enforced physical mixing. This reflects the multicultural reality of Southeast Asian indigenous societies—people from different backgrounds living together gradually form a shared identity. This integration becomes institutionalized within HDB’s framework.

Third, linking individual wealth to governance quality. The appreciation of public housing depends on Singapore’s ongoing prosperity and good governance. Well-managed government, developed infrastructure, and amenities cause property values to rise. This creates a powerful positive feedback loop: people are motivated to support good governance because it directly enhances their assets. A public housing policy that “binds interests—eliminates division—drives governance” isn’t just housing; it’s the foundation of the nation.

Returning to Solana. After FTX’s collapse, the Solana community faced a crisis akin to Singapore’s 1965 split. There are at least three “clans” on-chain with significant interests:

Speculators and Meme players. They are the largest contributors to on-chain activity—trading volume, fee revenue, buzz. But they’re disloyal—tend to jump to any trending chain, essentially mobile populations.

Developers and native builders. They’ve invested heavily in building DeFi protocols, infrastructure tools, DePIN projects on Solana. They need speculators (users and traffic) but dislike Meme players (distraction and capital drain). Their relationship is delicate and tense.

Validators and stakers. They are the backbone of network security, investing real hardware and staking capital. They care about network stability, staking yields, and SOL’s long-term value, and are often indifferent or even hostile to short-term speculation.

The competition among these groups is a source of division. Meme players complain about congestion and unfair prioritization; developers complain Meme draws away attention and funds; validators complain about opaque MEV distribution. Without a mechanism to coordinate these interests, community splits will only deepen.

Where is Solana’s “public housing”?

The ecosystem already has some mechanisms similar to “public housing,” but they’re far from systemic. The staking mechanism is closest—staking SOL locks assets into the network, and rewards depend on network health. Stakers naturally become “shareholders” of the network. But the issue is, currently, staking is concentrated among large holders and institutions; ordinary users have low participation and engagement—like if public housing was only sold to the wealthy, and the poor or renters had little stake, the “interest binding” effect diminishes.

Token governance and airdrops are “asset distribution” acts. Ecosystem projects distribute governance tokens (like Jupiter’s JUP airdrop to nearly a million active wallets), essentially “allocating assets”—turning passive participants into stakeholders. Well-designed, this can be as effective as public housing.

Superteam DAO’s global community is an attempt at “ethnic integration.” Superteam establishes local communities across countries and regions, enabling Indian developers, Turkish content creators, Nigerian DeFi users to collaborate within a shared organizational framework. It’s akin to HDB’s ethnic quotas—structured mixing to reduce factionalism and small circles.

But Solana still lacks a truly systemic “asset binding—interest coordination” mechanism. Imagine a more complete version: if Solana could build a system where developers earn ongoing protocol revenue share for successful on-chain applications; active users accumulate transferable “on-chain credit” or “citizenship” through long-term engagement; validators’ rewards are tightly linked to service reliability and decentralization contributions—then each participant’s personal wealth would be closely tied to Solana’s overall prosperity.

Only when speculators, developers, and validators become “owners” rather than just “renters” will they truly fight for the chain’s long-term interests. This is the deepest lesson Lee Kuan Yew taught us through public housing: humans won’t sacrifice for abstract ideals but will fight for their assets.

Now, a key question: where does Solana go from here?

Singapore’s economic transformation can be roughly divided into three stages. The first (60s-70s) was labor-intensive manufacturing—attracting multinationals with low-cost labor to earn foreign exchange. This is the “survival stage.” The second (80s-90s) was becoming a financial and trading hub—leveraging geographic and institutional advantages to become a regional capital hub and maritime logistics center. Gray capital played an undeniable role here. This is the “consolidation stage.” The third (2000s onward) is the knowledge economy and high-end manufacturing—massive investments in education, high-skilled labor, biotech, chip design, fintech, and gradually tightening AML regulations to “clean” the financial system. This is the “self-definition stage.”

Each transition isn’t natural but occurs proactively before the old model’s benefits are exhausted. It requires strong strategic patience and political will—because transformation means deliberately giving up some existing interests.

From this perspective, Solana is now nearing the end of the second stage. The capital and user dividends from the Meme wave are still there, but marginal returns are declining. Market fatigue over “the next 100x Meme” is rising. If Solana can’t complete its transformation before this wave subsides, it risks becoming just a “casino chain”—like if Singapore remained stuck in gray finance, it might today be just another Cayman Islands.

What will Solana’s third stage look like? I don’t know, but it definitely won’t be AI Agents.

Finally, a profound truth: the fate of a public chain is ultimately the fate of its governance.

Looking back at Singapore’s story, its success wasn’t luck but the result of making counterintuitive yet logical and commonsensical decisions at every critical juncture: opening up when needed (accepting gray capital), tightening when necessary (strict laws to maintain order), and transforming when appropriate (even if it meant sacrificing existing interests). Solana now stands at a similar crossroads.

The Meme wave provided it with survival and expansion ammunition, and a vibrant user base. But before this dividend fades, if Solana can’t accomplish three things—establish a dynamic, responsive token economic governance system; gain genuine decentralization to earn institutional trust; and build core industry ecosystems beyond Meme—it risks being abandoned by history, hesitating at the window of transformation, much like many “almost successful” small nations.

The competition among public chains: short-term narrative, medium-term technology, long-term governance. Tokens are more than price symbols—they are the currency of digital nations. And monetary policy is never a fixed line but an art of balance, timing, and patience.