Written by: Danny
When we talk about public chains in a bear market, what are we discussing? Is it price? Is it community? Or is it governance? The more fundamental question is: running a public chain is essentially about governing a digital nation. Tokens are currency, developers are citizens, DApps are industries, and on-chain governance is the government. If we re-examine the history of Solana from the perspective of governance, many seemingly random decisions reveal clear logic behind them.
Introduction: No one is born to be strong
On August 9, 1965, Lee Kuan Yew shed tears on television. Singapore was "kicked out" of the Malaysian Federation, becoming a tiny island nation without hinterland, resources, or an army. No one believed it could survive.
On November 11, 2022, FTX filed for bankruptcy. Solana's TVL evaporated by over 75% in a week, and the price of SOL plummeted from $32 to $8. The entire crypto community echoed, "Solana is finished."
The beginnings of these two stories are eerily similar: an abandoned small entity struggling for survival in a hostile environment. Their subsequent paths—from dependence, to gray survival, to transformation and upgrading—can almost be compared frame by frame.
This article aims to explore not price, not community, but a more fundamental question: running a public chain is essentially about governing a digital nation. Tokens are currency, developers are citizens, DApps are industries, and on-chain governance is the government. If we re-examine the history of Solana from the governance perspective, many seemingly random decisions exhibit a clear logic behind them.
Chapter One: The British Military Era—SBF and the FTX Umbrella
The British Military Economy of Singapore
In the early days of independence, one of Singapore's economic lifelines was the consumption and employment generated by the British garrison. The British military base contributed about 20% of the GDP at the time. Singapore was well aware of the fragility of this dependence, but as a newly born country, it lacked the luxury to choose its clients. Survival was the top priority.
In 1968, the UK announced that it would withdraw all troops east of the Suez Canal by 1971. This was akin to pulling the rug out from under Singapore. However, it was precisely this "abandonment" that forced Singapore to seriously consider: if the umbrella is gone, how will I survive?
The SBF Era of Solana (2020-2022)
The Solana mainnet went live in March 2020, but what truly set it apart from numerous "Ethereum killers" was Sam Bankman-Fried and his empire. FTX and Alameda Research were not only the largest sources of capital injection into the Solana ecosystem but also its credit endorsers. Early core projects in the ecosystem like Serum, Raydium, and Maps.me almost all had deep involvement from FTX-backed capital.
During this period, the Solana ecosystem resembled a prosperous Singapore during the British military presence: superficially flourishing, with attractive data (TVL once exceeding $12 billion), but with fundamentally weak foundations. A significant amount of on-chain activity stemmed from Alameda’s market-making capital circulating within the ecosystem; the real organic demand was far from what the data portrayed.
While Singapore depended on British military consumption, Solana relied on SBF's funding. The commonality is that the prosperity is real, but its source is external, concentrated, and could vanish at any moment.
The Collapse of the Umbrella
In November 2022, FTX transformed from the world's second-largest exchange into a pile of rubble within 72 hours. The impact on Solana was systemic: Serum's governance keys were controlled by FTX, leading to direct paralysis of the project; vast treasury assets of many ecosystem projects were frozen in FTX; the issue of SOL's staking concentration was laid bare; market confidence hit rock bottom, and developers began leaving.
This was Solana's "1968 moment." The umbrella did not gradually withdraw; it was blown away overnight.
Chapter Two: How a Resource-Less Small Country Survives—The Underlying Endowments of Solana
Singapore's "Only Resource": Geographic Location
Singapore lacks oil, lacks minerals, and even freshwater has to be imported from Malaya. But it possesses one gift from nature: a strategic position at the Strait of Malacca. Approximately 25% of global maritime trade passes through here. Lee Kuan Yew realized early on that having resources was unnecessary; he only needed to be the optimal node for resource circulation.
Solana's "Only Resource": Performance and Cabal
In the world of public chains, Solana lacks the first-mover advantage of Ethereum, the narrative myth of Bitcoin, and the modular flexibility of Cosmos. But it possesses one critical element: ultimate performance at the native layer. Block time of 400 milliseconds, theoretical peak of 65,000 TPS, and extremely low transaction fees (usually below $0.001).
This is not a dispensable technical parameter. Just as the geographic position of the Strait of Malacca determines Singapore's role as a trading hub, Solana's performance characteristics inherently make it suitable for facilitating high-frequency, low-value, massive on-chain activities.
The geographic position for Singapore is to it what block speed and transaction cost are to Solana: this is its ticket for cabals to willingly engage in competition.
Chapter Three: Survival Wisdom in the Gray Zone—From Money Laundering Port to Meme Casino
Singapore's "Less Than Glorious" Intermediate Stage
This is a period in Singapore's official narrative often downplayed. During the rapid development from the 1970s to 1990s, Singapore's rise as a regional financial center was not solely reliant on its "clean and efficient" reputation.
A harsh reality is that in Southeast Asia during that era, surrounding countries—Suharto's regime in Indonesia, the Marcos family in the Philippines, and the military government in Myanmar—generated substantial funds that required "cleaning." This money needed a secure, non-inquisitive, predictably legal haven. Singapore happened to provide such an environment: strict banking secrecy laws, efficient financial infrastructure, and a pragmatic attitude of "as long as you follow my rules, I won’t question where your money comes from."
Business does not have moral judgments; it only has survival strategies. A resource-less small country must accept some "imperfect money" in its initial phases to accumulate enough capital stock for future transformation.
The key is that Singapore never allowed things to go unmanaged. While attracting funds, it always maintained extremely high administrative efficiency and legal certainty (Temasek and GIC are among the world's top 10 sovereign wealth funds). You may bring gray money, but you cannot create chaos on my territory. This "orderly gray" is an extremely delicate balancing act.
Solana's Meme Season and Pump.fun (2023-2024)
Solana's Meme Season and Pump.fun (2023-2024)
After the collapse of FTX, Solana faced survival pressures comparable to Singapore in its early independence. TVL drained, developers fled, narratives collapsed. At this point, what it needed was not "correct" growth, but "any form of" growth—survival came first.
From late 2023 to 2024, a Meme wave swept across Solana. The emergence of Pump.fun lowered the barrier for issuing memes to nearly zero: anyone could create a token in minutes, without code or audits. The rich get-rich myths of memes like BONK, WIF, and BOME attracted a flood of speculative capital.
From the perspective of traditional finance or technological fundamentalism, this was a disaster. The Solana chain was rife with Rug Pulls (projects disappearing), Sniper Bots (front-running robots), and countless worthless tokens. But if we understand it through the historical lens of Singapore, we find striking similarities and a degree of rationality:
Meme activities on Solana are analogous to gray money in early Singapore—they may not step onto the grand stage of tech geeks, but they provide three critical contributions:
- Capital inflow (foreign reserves): Meme trading brought vast on-chain transaction volumes and fee revenues, directly enriching the validators' economic model and stabilizing the network's basic operations.
- User base (population): Millions of new users accessed the Solana wallet for the first time (Phantom's downloads soared during this period), even if they initially came just to gamble.
- Infrastructure stress test (urban construction): The extreme transaction load during the meme peak exposed the real bottlenecks of the Solana network, pushing for the accelerated development of critical infrastructure like the Firedancer client.
The wisdom of Singapore lies not in "accepting gray money" but in "never ceasing to build legitimate institutional infrastructure while accepting gray money." Similarly, the key for Solana is not the memes themselves but whether it can simultaneously advance real valuable foundational construction under the cover of the meme frenzy.
Chapter Four: Currency as Sovereignty—The Governance Logic of Token Economics
Singapore's Monetary Policy Philosophy
The monetary policy of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) stands out among global central banks: it does not primarily use interest rates as a tool but rather manages the exchange rate band of the Singapore dollar to regulate the economy. The appreciation channel is used to curb inflation and attract capital; the depreciation channel stimulates exports and maintains competitiveness.
The core logic is: currency is not static; it must be dynamic and responsive. How much money to print, whether to appreciate or depreciate the currency, depends on the needs of the current economic cycle. Excessive issuance dilutes national wealth and triggers inflation; excessive tightening stifles economic vitality. Good monetary policy is a continuous balancing act.
The Token Economics of SOL: A Dynamic Game from Inflation to Deflation
The token economics of Solana has also undergone a similar evolutionary process.
Initial inflation phase (quantitative easing): When the Solana mainnet launched, an annual inflation rate of approximately 8% was set, decreasing at a rate of 15% per year, with a long-term target converging to 1.5%. These newly issued SOL are used to pay staking rewards, essentially serving as a subsidy for validators—a form of "fiscal expenditure," akin to how emerging countries initially invest heavily in infrastructure; you must incur costs to attract "citizens" (validators) to maintain network security.
Introducing the destruction mechanism (tightening policy): In 2023, Solana introduced a partial destruction mechanism for transaction fees—50% of the base fee of each transaction is permanently destroyed. When on-chain activity is sufficiently vibrant, the amount of destroyed SOL can approach or even exceed the newly issued quantity, effectively entering a deflationary state.
This is like a country's central bank finally having the ability to "raise interest rates": when the economy (on-chain activity) is sufficiently thriving, maintaining currency value through retracting currency supply.
But the problem is: Solana currently lacks a truly dynamic, responsive monetary policy framework. Its inflation rate mechanically decreases according to a preset curve, while the destruction rate is entirely dependent on market activity, with no "smart adjustment mechanism" like that of MAS. This remains a deep governance issue that Solana (and almost all public chains) has yet to solve: the issuance and destruction of tokens should not be a fixed curve but should dynamically adjust based on the network's "economic cycle." When network congestion occurs (economic overheating), the fee destruction ratio should be increased to curb speculation; when the network is quiet (economic recession), perhaps the staking threshold for validators should be lowered to increase incentives.
A truly mature public chain economy does not require a fixed inflation curve written in code, but a set of on-chain "central bank" governance mechanisms.
Only a few understand that tokens do not only increase in value through destruction.
Chapter Five: HDB Politics—"Only Those with Assets Will Protect the Nation."
The real crisis in Singapore during its early founding years: not poverty, but a sense of division among the ethnic groups.
Most discussions of the Singapore miracle focus on economic growth. However, Lee Kuan Yew repeatedly emphasized that the most dangerous enemy during the early years of independence was not poverty, but ethnic rupture.
In 1965, Singapore's population was approximately 75% Chinese, 15% Malay, and 7% Indian. The three ethnic groups were unable to communicate effectively, had different beliefs, and harbored mutual suspicion. One of the triggers for Singapore's ejection from the Malaysian Federation was the irreconcilable ethnic conflicts between the Chinese and Malays—the 1964 racial riots resulted in 23 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
After independence, Singapore faced a harsh reality: the people on this island did not fundamentally view themselves as "Singaporeans." The Chinese identified with Chinese culture, the Malays with the Malay Federation, and the Indians with India. No one felt a sense of belonging to the concept of "Singapore," let alone being willing to sacrifice for it.
The fundamental problem Lee Kuan Yew needed to solve was: how to get a group of mutually distrustful individuals to willingly stay under the same roof and be willing to contribute to maintaining it?
HDB: More than Just a House, It's a National Binding Mechanism
The answer lay in HDB public housing—a possibly one of the most ingenious social engineering projects in human history.
On the surface, HDB addresses the housing issue. In 1960s Singapore, a large population lived in slums and shantytowns. The government built public housing on a large scale, selling it to citizens at prices far below market rates and allowing the use of Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings to pay for housing loans. Today, over 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats.
However, the true genius of HDB lies in the political logic behind it. Lee Kuan Yew famously stated (in essence), "A person who has assets in a place is more willing to defend it."
The HDB system achieves at least three strategic objectives:
First, it creates "stakeholders." When you are merely a tenant, the rise and fall of the city is of little concern to you—you can always move. But when you own a home, your net worth becomes intertwined with the fate of the country. When housing prices rise, your net worth rises; when the country is in turmoil, your assets decrease. Each HDB owner becomes a "shareholder" in Singapore's fortunes.
Second, it enforces racial integration. This is the most underrated design of the HDB system. HDB implements strict ethnic quota policies (Ethnic Integration Policy): in each HDB community, there are limits on the proportions of Chinese, Malays, and Indians, ensuring that no single ethnic group dominates a neighborhood. Your neighbors will certainly be different. Children play together downstairs, attend the same school. After a generation, the physical blending of ethnicities gradually dissolves racial barriers.
Third, it links personal wealth to the quality of national governance. The appreciation of HDB flats depends on Singapore's ongoing prosperity and good governance. When the government governs well, develops neighborhoods, and improves amenities, your property appreciates. This creates a powerful positive feedback loop: citizens have the incentive to support good governance because good governance directly enhances their asset values.
An HDB flat accomplishes the tripartite mission of "binding interests—eliminating divisions—stimulating governance." This is not merely a housing policy; it is nation-building.
Solana's "Ethnic Issue": A Fragmented Community
Returning the perspective to Solana, the Solana community after the FTX collapse faces a level of fragmentation comparable to Singapore in 1965.
On-chain, there are at least three "ethnic groups" with entirely different interests:
Speculative traders and meme players. They are the largest contributors to on-chain activity in Solana, bringing trading volume, fees, and topical interest. However, they have no loyalty to Solana and flock to whichever chain has the latest trend; they are essentially a transient population.
Native developers and builders. They have invested significant time and technical capital into building DeFi protocols, infrastructure tools, and DePIN projects on Solana. They both need (users and traffic) and resent meme speculators (who lower the seriousness of the ecosystem), resulting in a delicate and tense relationship.
Validators and stakers. They are the backbone of network security, investing real hardware and staking capital. They are concerned about network stability, staking yield, and the long-term value of SOL, showing no interest in short-term speculation.
The competitive tension among these three groups is divisive. Meme players complain about unfair treatment in the priority queue during network congestion; developers complain that memes drain attention and funds; validators express dissatisfaction with the opacity of the MEV distribution mechanism. If there is no mechanism to align the interests of these three parties, the centrifugal force within the Solana community will only grow stronger.
Where Is Solana's "HDB"?
What insights does Lee Kuan Yew's wisdom—binding citizen assets to collective fate—offer to Solana? There are already some mechanisms in the Solana ecosystem that function similarly to an "HDB," but they are far from systematic:
The staking mechanism is the closest design to "HDB." When you stake SOL, you lock your assets within the network, and your rewards depend directly on the network's healthy operation. Stakers naturally become "shareholders" of network security. However, the current staking is mainly concentrated in the hands of large holders and institutions, with ordinary users' participation and engagement falling short—much like if HDB were exclusively sold to the wealthy, leaving the poor as tenants, significantly undermining the "interest binding" effect.
Governance tokens and airdrops are akin to a form of "dividing houses." Ecosystem projects airdrop governance tokens (like JTO and JUP airdrops) to early users and developers, essentially "distributing assets"—transforming participants from bystanders into stakeholders. The JUP token airdrop of Jupiter reached nearly a million active wallets, rapidly creating a large set of "owners" who feel a sense of belonging to the Jupiter protocol. If designed effectively, this mechanism could be as impactful as HDB.
The global community of Superteam DAO is an attempt at "ethnic integration." Superteam establishes localized communities in different countries and regions, allowing developers from India, content creators from Turkey, and DeFi users from Nigeria to collaborate under a single organizational framework. This is somewhat akin to the ethnic quota system of HDB—structurally mixed to reduce cliques and factions.
However, what Solana still lacks is a truly systematic "asset binding—interest alignment" mechanism. Imagine a more refined version: if the Solana ecosystem could establish a system where developers receive ongoing protocol layer revenue shares due to successful on-chain application deployment; where active users accumulate a form of non-transferrable "on-chain credit" or "citizenship" through long-term use; where validators' rewards are tied to their reliability in service and contribution to decentralization—then the personal wealth of every participant would be tightly bound to Solana's overall prosperity.
When speculators, developers, and validators all become "owners" rather than mere "tenants," they will be genuinely motivated to fight for the long-term interests of this chain. This is the deepest lesson imparted to us by Lee Kuan Yew's housing strategy: people will not fight for abstract ideals but will fiercely protect their own assets.
Chapter Six: The Crossroads of Transformation—"What Comes Next?"
Singapore’s Three Leapfrogs
Singapore's economic transformation can be roughly divided into three stages:
First stage (1960s-1970s): Labor-intensive manufacturing. Attract multinational companies to set up factories by utilizing low-cost labor, earning foreign exchange, and solving employment issues. This was the "survival" phase.
Second stage (1980s-1990s): Financial and trade hub. Utilizing geographic location and institutional advantages, it became a regional capital flow and shipping logistics center. Gray money played a significant role during this stage. This was the "gaining a foothold" phase.
Third stage (2000s to present): Knowledge economy and high-end manufacturing. Strong investments in education, talent recruitment (global talent programs), and development of high-value industries like biomedicine, semiconductor design, and financial technology. Gradually tightening anti-money laundering regulations to "clean up" the financial system—this is the "defining itself" phase.
Every leap was not a natural occurrence; rather, it was a proactive transformation toward a new model before the profits of the old one were entirely exhausted. This requires strong strategic determination and political will because transformation means proactively giving up parts of current interests.
Solana's Current Position: The Tail End of the Second Stage
Using Singapore's framework for positioning, Solana is currently in the middle to late part of its second stage. The capital and user advantages brought by the meme wave still exist, but their marginal effects have begun to wane. Market fatigue towards the "next hundredfold meme" is rising, and if Solana cannot complete its transformation before the heat of this phase dissipates, it risks becoming merely a "casino chain"—just as Singapore might have been another Cayman Islands had it lingered in the gray finance phase.
What might Solana's third stage look like?
I don't know, but it certainly won't be an AI Agent.
Conclusion: The Fate of Public Chains Is Ultimately the Fate of Governance
Looking back at the story of Singapore, its success was not due to good luck but because, at every critical juncture, it made counterintuitive yet logical and sensible decisions: opening when it should have opened (even accepting gray money), controlling when it should have controlled (strict laws to maintain order), and transforming when it should have transformed (even at the cost of current interests).
Solana stands at a similar crossroads. The meme frenzy provided it with ammunition for survival and an active user base, but if it cannot accomplish three tasks before this wave of bonuses recedes—establishing a dynamic token economic governance mechanism, achieving true decentralization to earn institutional trust, and nurturing core industrial ecosystems beyond memes—then it may end up like countless "almost successful" small countries in history, hesitating during the transformation window and ultimately being eliminated by the times.
The competition among public chains is, in the short term, about narratives, in the medium term, about technology, and in the long term, about governance.
Tokens are not just a price symbol; they are the currency of a digital nation. And monetary policy has never been a fixed curve, but an art of balance, timing, and restraint.
Postscript:
This article uses the development trajectory of Singapore as an analogy to analyze the Solana public chain ecosystem, aiming to provide a new perspective on thinking about public chain governance. The narrative of Singapore's history has been simplified to serve the analogy logic and does not constitute a comprehensive evaluation of Singapore's policies.
Also, would the same comparative framework be used for other public chains? Sure, why not?
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