In a blow to the burgeoning world of decentralized finance (DeFi), Edgar Pavlovsky, the chief executive of Marginfi, a Solana-based lending platform, has abruptly resigned in a departure that triggered a wave of investment withdrawals and saw the platform total value locked (TVL) drop by 25%.
Marginfi confirmed Pavlovsky’s resignation over disagreements with the company’s practices, which has shaken confidence in the platform. The outflow of funds has pushed Marginfi’s TVL below $600 million, a stark illustration of the user exodus.
Further complicating matters, a public spat with SolBlaze, a Solana staking pool, regarding governance token handling, as reported on Yahoo Finance. This discord has created an opening for competitor Solend, which has been aggressively courting Marginfi users with airdrop incentives to migrate their funds.
Adding to Marginfi’s woes, the Solana network itself is experiencing growing pains. A recent surge in bot activity has choked the network, leading to transaction failures and slow processing times.
This congestion is further compounded by a recent explosion in memecoin-related transactions, creating extreme demand for limited space on Solana’s blockchains, effectively blocking access for many regular users.
The first quarter this year saw a record number of new tokens launched on Solana’s decentralized exchanges, with memecoins leading the charge as memecoin traders flocked to the network over its low transaction fees.
This memecoin activity has seen investors make and lose fortunes in small amounts of time. In one case, a SOL trader lost a staggering 721 SOL, equivalent to roughly $138,000 at, within a mere 35 minutes of PUNDU’s trading debut after withdrawing 1,535 SOL from leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance before the cryptocurrency started trading.
Featured image via Unsplash.
