Solana Founder Introduces New Coin as April Fools’ Joke

In case you are tired of the usual April Fools’ Day jokes about Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity being finally revealed, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko has something new up his sleeve. 

Yakovenko has published a white paper for his cryptocurrency dubbed “BunkerCoin.” 

“If you are into mainstream adoption, pivot to bunkers,” the Solana co-founder quipped on the X social media profile. 

Yakovenko has described BunkerCoin as a “groundbreaking blockchain protocol designed to operate under the constraints of low bandwidth networks.” The coin is supposed to operate through shortwave radio channels.

Miners would be incentivized to confirm blocks and maintain the security of the network with the help of “a novel proof of elapsed time verifiable delay function (VDF).”

The consensus mechanism of the protocol would be based on the Nakamoto-style longest chain rule, which makes it possible to allow all nodes to agree on what the chain looks like. Just like with Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, the longest chain becomes the “definitive” chain. 

The innovative cryptocurrency is supposed to ensure stable communication in “bandwidth-constrained environments.”

It is worth noting that the coin is still a joke. Hence, any BunkerCoins that might appear following Yakovenko’s post are most likely scams. 

Still, there are some community members who wish that this cryptocurrency was not a joke. 

The original BunkerCoin? 

Yakovenko’s BunkerCoin idea remains a joke for now, but the idea of transmitting crypto through radio is not new. 

Rodolfo Novak, co-founder of crypto startup CoinKite, actually sent a first-of-its-kind Bitcoin transaction via ham radio in 2019. 

Back in 2014, Finnish Bitcoin enthusiasts also developed a project called  Kryptoradio, which makes it possible to transmit blockchain information.