The staff behind blockchain community Solana has deleted a controversial commercial posted on its X account after immense backlash over political messaging round gender identification.
The greater than two-and-a-half-minute advert for the Solana Speed up convention posted on March 17 with the caption “America is again. Time to Speed up” depicted a person as “America” in a remedy session who stated he was having ideas “about innovation” similar to crypto.
The therapist responds he ought to do “one thing extra productive, like arising with a brand new gender” and later says the person ought to “deal with pronouns.”
Because the dialog meanders on, the person snaps and launches right into a monologue amid swelling patriotic music, saying he needs to “construct onchain and reclaim my place because the beacon of innovation” and needs “to invent applied sciences, not genders” in an obvious dig at progressive values.
Earlier than its deletion, the advert was seen over 1.2 million occasions and racked up over 1,300 feedback and 1,400 reposts, a majority of which derided it for its dealing with of gender identification and for making gentle of a highly divisive political challenge.
“They rolled it again as a result of it damage their enterprise, not as a result of they thought it was flawed,” Cinneamhain Ventures associate Adam Cochran wrote to X on March 18.
Took them 9 hours to delete it.
Additionally all the foremost gamers within the Solana ecosystem out of the blue delete their tweets selling/supporting the advert and RT’d and appreciated takes about it being dangerous.
They accepted this, supported it and celebrated it.
They rolled it again as a result of it damage… pic.twitter.com/kPMERDpTcn
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) March 18, 2025
Solana has not acknowledged why it deleted the advert. The Solana Basis didn't instantly reply to a request for remark.
Sean O’Connor, working chief at Web3 infrastructure agency Blocknative, wrote on X, “That is so fucking tone deaf.”
“At a time when trans individuals are getting denied passports and being erased by the federal government... that is the advert you set out?” he added.
On his first day again within the White Home, President Donald Trump revoked Joe Biden’s govt orders aimed toward stopping discrimination based mostly on gender and sexual orientation.
He additionally signed an order recognizing solely two sexes — female and male — and scrapped the choice for People to decide on “X” as a gender on passports.
DoubleZero working chief David McIntyre called Solana’s advert “horrendous” and questioned why Solana didn’t “maintain the message optimistic as a substitute of dunking on folks and making gentle of great cultural points.”
Nicolas Pennie, the co-founder of the Solana improvement platform Helius, said on X that “advantage signaling will all the time be cringe no matter political ideology.”
Others who initially backed the advert have additionally pulled their assist amid the backlash.
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Multicoin Capital co-founder Tushar Jain wrote on X that he deleted his preliminary post praising the advert “after some reflection.”
He beforehand referred to as the advert “daring and dangerous” and stated having former Vice President Kamala Harris play the function of therapist was the “solely factor that might have made it higher.”
In his retraction assertion, Jain stated it will have been simpler to “deal with deeper tradition struggle points just like the failings of the oppressor-oppressed world view, not floor tradition struggle points like pronouns,” and the advert might have despatched a message “with out alienating a portion of the viewers.”
X Corridor of Flame: Solana ‘will be a trillion-dollar asset’ — Mert Mumtaz
