Blockchain researcher Max Resnick jumped from Ethereum infrastructure firm Consensys to Solana research and development firm Anza after recently opposing key aspects of Ethereum’s roadmap.
“I’m taking my talents to Solana,” Resnick said in a Dec. 9 X post after revealing he’d started work at Anza the same day.
Resnick, who worked as head of research at Consensys subsidiary Special Mechanisms Group since February 2023, had been critical of Ethereum’s scaling strategy.
Resnick said that for the first 100 days at Anza, he will be writing a technical specification focused on Solana’s fee markets and consensus implementations — two areas where he can have the “highest impact.”
Source: Max Resnick
Anza is the software firm behind Solana’s Agave client — aimed at improving the network’s resilience and uptime, among other things.
Ethereum community member Ryan Berckmans was happy to see Resnick leave for Solana after he criticized Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling approach, arguing it should focus its scaling efforts at the base layer like Solana.
Source: Max Resnick
“Critics like Max have frequently claimed that Ethereum needs to become more like Solana,” Berckmans said in a Dec. 9 X post.
Resnick will now work to improve client diversity and build a more robust research community like Ethereum, Berckmans pointed out, adding:
“That's ironic considering he kept saying Ethereum had to become more like Solana.”
Speaking on the Ethereum show “Bankless” on Sept. 4, Resnick said the amount of “re-architecture” needed to change Solana’s consensus rules would be mostly out of his control after being asked if he would ever leave for Solana.
Consensus refers to the method by which nodes validate transactions and agree on the blockchain’s correct state
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Others, such as the co-founders of Ethereum and Solana, Joe Lubin and Anatoly Yakovenko, viewed Resnick’s move more positively for the industry, saying it would “cross-pollinate” and accelerate the space for everyone.
Resnick will continue working with Consensys in an advisory capacity as a research fellow.
He said Special Mechanism Group and two of its new hires, including Mallesh Pai, “will continue to drive outsized impact internally within Consensys, in the Ethereum community, and in blockchain research and development more broadly.”
Resnick’s move may call more attention to Solana’s technical roadmap as he boasts the 34th largest mindshare on crypto X over the last 30 days, Kaito AI data shows.
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