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You are here: Home / Bitcoin Industry News / Solana Protected Gender Identity Before Panning It in Anti-Queer Ad

March 18, 2025

Solana Protected Gender Identity Before Panning It in Anti-Queer Ad

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.

Author: Danny Nelson

Filed Under: Bitcoin Industry News

Expert Witness

Ty Sagalow head shotTy Sagalow's unique background in legal, underwriting, policy drafting and claims – and his designation as a “qualified insurance expert” by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California – offers attorneys an unparalleled resource in D&O, E&O and Cyber insurance coverage disputes. He was also named "Most Helpful Expert" in a recent $8.7M coverage decision.

Mr. Sagalow served as Chief Underwriting Officer and General Counsel for AIG Executive Liability (formerly National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA), the world’s largest carrier of Directors and Officers Liability and Professional Liability Insurance. As General Counsel, Mr. Sagalow personally wrote or led teams that wrote all the D&O policies and many of the professional liability policies that AIG produced between 1988 and 2000 – policies which continue to serve as the foundational wording for the D&O and professional liability policies in the market today. As AIG Executive Liability’s Chief Underwriting Officer, Mr. Sagalow was charged with all underwriting interpretations and decisions for AIG D&O/E&O policies. In 2009, Mr. Sagalow headed up the team that rewrote all D&O policies for Zurich North America.

Ty is a cum laude graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and holds a LLM from New York University School of Law.

Bitcoin Insurance

Combining his talents as a network security insurance expert and an insurance product development expert, Ty Sagalow is the leading expert on the unique risk and insurance needs of the bitcoin industry.

With the successful sale of BitSecure(tm), the first bitcoin theft insurance policy in February of 2015, he is the first to create a sustainable, robust insurance policy to cover the theft of bitcoins and other virtual currency backed by an A-Rated, global “top 10” Property and Casualty insurance company.

Company Profile

Innovation Insurance Group is an insurance consulting firm and insurance brokerage founded by 30-year insurance executive, Ty R. Sagalow, former Chief Underwriting Officer, General Counsel and Chief Innovation Officer at AIG, and former Chief Innovation Officer at Zurich, NA and Tower Group. IIG focuses on three core practice groups: product development, expert witness services (primarily in the Management and Professional Liability areas), and bitcoin industry brokerage services.

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