By Danny Nelson, CoinDesk
The Solana Foundation nixed an ad widely criticized for being anti-queer late Monday, nearly nine hours after seemingly invoking the culture wars as a mechanism to boost conference attendance.
The now-deleted spot imagines "America" in therapy. A human embodiment of the nation desperately wants to think big – about tech, crypto, space travel. But he can't: his therapist wants him to "focus on pronouns" and on "coming up with new genders."
"America, numbers are non-binary," the therapist insists after chiding his "rational thinking syndrome." America eventually snaps and yells out, "I want to invent technologies, not genders.
That the Solana Foundation – a Swiss nonprofit whose mission is to evangelize the Solana blockchain – would call upon right-wing talking points to promote its first U.S. conference sparked immediate controversy. Some influential voices within Solanaland called it pandering; others, offensive.
It's also a reversal for an organization that previously called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) part of its "core values" and insisted attendees of its flagship event show respect to others regardless of gender.
Just weeks before President Donald Trump retook the White House in part on an anti-trans campaign, the foundation held a conference in Singapore. The event's code of conduct prohibited "deliberate verbal or physical intimidation" based on "gender," "gender identity and expression," or other traits often lumped in with DEI. It threatened infractors with ejection and a ban from attending future events.
"The Solana Foundation is committed to the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and respect," the Code of conduct read.
It's not clear whether the Solana Foundation's ad strategy also portends a shift in its "core values." CoinDesk could not immediately locate the code of conduct for the upcoming event. A representative for the Solana Foundation did not return a request for comment.
Regardless, the ad threatened to thrust crypto deeper into partisan politics than many in the industry are comfortable with.
The crypto industry's embrace of President Trump had previously been an exercise of single-issue alignment: Trump promised to embrace crypto, and the industry's high-rollers hugged him back. The arrangement has left room for proponents to work alongside Democrats too, and many have.
That bargain may begin to fall apart if crypto loses its ostensibly bipartisan sheen.
