If You Want to Be Great, Make Enemies: How Max Resnick’s Provocative Stand‑Points Are Shaping Solana’s Roadmap
By Andrew Fenton – Cointelegraph Magazine
February 21 2026
TL;DR
- Max Resnick, former ConsenSys researcher and lead economist at Ethereum‑focused SMG, left the ecosystem in 2025 to join Solana’s core development team, Anza.
- His public campaign to scale Ethereum’s base layer – and the backlash it generated – led him to adopt the mantra “to be great, you must make enemies.”
- At Solana, Resnick is driving upgrades aimed at reducing validator‑derived MEV, expanding concurrency, and giving applications fine‑grained control over transaction ordering.
- The contrasting governance cultures of Ethereum (research‑heavy, cautious) and Solana (fast‑moving, execution‑focused) are crystallising around Resnick’s experience, highlighting a generational shift in blockchain development.
From Whitehouse Intern to Blockchain Economist
Resnick’s early professional life was marked by a stint in the Trump administration’s health‑economics desk, where he reported that even simple logistical tasks—like securing a whiteboard—required weeks of bureaucratic wrangling. The episode left him skeptical of political institutions and reinforced his belief that “truth‑seeking” often bends to agenda‑driven narratives.
After graduating in economics from the University of Michigan, he gravitated toward algorithmic game theory, a discipline that introduced him to the Bitcoin whitepaper. A research assistantship led to a role at Risk Harbor, a nascent DeFi startup, where he tried to build precision‑priced automated market makers. Frustrated by competitors undercutting his models, he turned his attention to Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) and published a paper in early 2023 on the relationship between MEV and censorship resistance. The work secured him a senior research position at the Special Mechanism Group, which was later absorbed by ConsenSys.
The Ethereum “Civil War” Campaign
During his tenure at ConsenSys, Resnick became increasingly critical of Ethereum’s reliance on “parasitic” Layer‑2 solutions. He argued that scaling the base chain directly was the only way to prevent the extraction of value by sequencers and to avoid the centralisation pressures inherent in many roll‑up designs. His arguments were amplified in a September 2024 appearance on the Bankless podcast, where host Ryan Sean Adams cheekily asked whether Resnick was trying to ignite an “Ethereum civil war.”
Resnick’s blunt criticism earned him a mixed reception: some developers echoed his concerns, while token‑focused promoters dismissed him as a disruptor. The episode coincided with Ethereum’s own pivot toward a longer‑term L1 scaling roadmap, a move Resnick described as a “pivot” rather than an inevitable evolution.
He summed up his philosophy succinctly: “If you want to be good, you make friends. If you want to be great, you make enemies.” For Resnick, the adversaries were not the core engineers—many of whom shared his technical concerns—but rather the community members who, in his view, were more interested in token price than network health.
Jumping Ship: From Ethereum Critic to Solana Economist
In early 2025, Resnick made a dramatic shift. After trolling Solana’s validator infrastructure with a satirical “precision strike” tweet, he accepted a role as lead economist at Anza, the team behind Solana’s primary client, Agave. The move surprised observers, given his prior animosity toward the project, but Resnick explains it as a natural progression: he had long been interested in whether Solana’s engineering ideas could be translated back into Ethereum.
His time at Solana has been characterized by a stark cultural contrast. He describes Solana’s development environment as “fast‑moving” and “action‑oriented,” citing the rapid rollout of the Alpenglow upgrade (which replaced Proof‑of‑History with the Votor/Rotor consensus mechanisms) as evidence of a decisive execution mindset. By comparison, he notes that Ethereum’s historic merge took five years to transition from Proof‑of‑Work to Proof‑of‑Stake.
Current Work: Cutting MEV, Expanding Concurrency
At Anza, Resnick’s focus is on two intertwined problems:
-
Validator‑derived MEV – He argues that the privileged position of block producers can siphon value from users, distorting market efficiency. His goal is to drive this extracted value to zero by redesigning the economic incentives around block production.
- Multiple Concurrent Proposers (MCP) – This upgrade aims to replace the single‑leader block‑proposal model with a multi‑leader architecture, reducing any single point of censorship and lowering the potential for MEV extraction.
In tandem with Solana’s co‑founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Resnick helped author the mid‑year roadmap’s “Application‑Controlled Execution” (ACE) feature, which gives decentralized applications more granular authority over trade execution. The initiative, originally codenamed “ASS,” was renamed after feedback from venture investors, underscoring the blend of technical ambition and market awareness that now defines Solana’s product strategy.
Governance and Ideology: A Generational Lens
Resnick, now in his mid‑20s, frames the Ethereum–Solana divide as a generational shift. Ethereum’s research‑heavy, risk‑averse approach reflects a community that has matured—and, in Resnick’s words, sometimes “grown complacent.” Solana’s “you‑build‑it‑fast” culture, by contrast, attracts younger engineers eager to ship tangible improvements quickly.
He is skeptical of what he calls “ideological crutches,” such as Ethereum’s pursuit of “World‑War‑Three‑grade” availability. While acknowledging the noble intent, Resnick argues that focusing on unlikely worst‑case scenarios can impede practical progress. On Solana, he points to concrete performance gains—lower latency, higher throughput—achieved through hardware‑intensive data centers, even if those gains come at the expense of certain decentralisation guarantees.
Nonetheless, Resnick does not dismiss Ethereum entirely. He credits the platform’s deep talent pool and rigorous problem‑formalisation, noting that Solana now borrows the “research‑driven” discipline to articulate trade‑offs more clearly. In recent interviews he expressed a “grudging respect” for Ethereum’s leadership, recognising that the network’s scale introduces constraints absent from newer ecosystems.
Impact and Outlook
Resnick’s trajectory illustrates how outspoken criticism can translate into cross‑chain influence. His push for L1 scaling helped catalyse Ethereum’s renewed focus on base‑layer improvements, while his work at Solana could set new standards for MEV mitigation—a topic of growing concern across all public blockchains.
Analysts see his dual‑chain experience as a conduit for knowledge transfer:
- For Solana: The adoption of academically‑grounded MEV models may improve the network’s perception among institutional investors wary of extraction risks.
- For Ethereum: Resnick’s public challenges underscore the pressure on the roadmap team to deliver L1 upgrades faster, lest developers migrate to higher‑throughput alternatives.
Key Takeaways
- Provocative advocacy matters: Resnick’s “make enemies” stance amplified his ideas, forcing both communities to confront uncomfortable trade‑offs.
- Cross‑chain talent flow is accelerating: Expertise in blockchain economics now moves fluidly between ecosystems, enriching design debates.
- Governance cultures diverge: Ethereum’s cautious, research‑centric model contrasts sharply with Solana’s execution‑first approach, reflecting broader generational preferences.
- MEV remains a frontier: Both networks are experimenting with architectural changes to curb validator‑derived extraction, setting the stage for future competition.
- Ideology versus pragmatism: Resnick argues that over‑emphasis on theoretical resilience can slow tangible progress; Solana’s rapid upgrades illustrate a pragmatic counter‑point.
As the blockchain industry matures, the tension between “making friends” and “making enemies” may become a catalyst rather than a controversy—propelling design, governance, and performance forward in ways that benefit users across the spectrum. Max Resnick’s journey from dissenting Ethereum researcher to Solana’s chief economist epitomises that dynamic.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/great-enemies-ethereum-solana-anza-economist-max-resnick/?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound
