Solana Foundation’s President may be the busiest person in crypto and one of the smartest.

Dec 10, 2024, 2:07 p.m. UTC

The Solana blockchain's two-year comeback story may have reached its zenith with SOL's record high in late November. But, two months earlier, the blockchain's community had already come together to plot future successes at its annual conference, hosted by Solana Foundation President Lily Liu.

Liu, a venture investor with Anagram and L2 Iterative Ventures, may not be as well-known to the SOL faithful as the blockchain's founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Behind the scenes, she may be just as important. While the Solana Foundation doesn't exert operational control over the network, it holds massive influence in shaping the blockchain's story.

Somehow finding the time, Liu recently joined the board of Ledger. She is also on the founding team of Osmosis, a decentralized exchange, and acts as an advisor to Brave, the pioneering Web3 browser. Previously, she co-founded Earn.com, a staking startup that was acquired by Coinbase in 2018.

Liu is a super smart thinker, appearing on multiple stages each year. She can stand up for Solana against the greatest minds in crypto. Here, for instance, is her duking it out recently with Sreeram Kannan (“The Blockchain Professor”) in a battle of Ethereum-vs. -Solana relative merits.

At the conference, Liu engineered a radically different conference setup. Instead of peppering its stages with 20 minute panels, her team broke most timeslots into five minute product keynote sessions for founders to hone – and proclaim – their creations. The design was as much about informing Breakpoint's attendees as it was developing byte-sized promotional videos the founders could take with them.

Liu's alternative conference design shifted the focus from Solana itself to the entrepreneurs building permissionless financial systems atop it, from stablecoins to gaming and beyond. And in the race for blockchains to prove they have purpose, that may make all the difference.

This profile is part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024 package. For all of this year's nominees, click here.