Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has responded to criticism regarding the slow progress of Solana's decentralized exchange (DEX) development. Yakovenko highlighted the challenges of building a DEX on a permissionless Layer 1 blockchain that can compete with Binance in terms of pricing. He noted that this process is more complex and costly than establishing a centralized exchange, leading to longer development cycles. Yakovenko pointed out that the spread in Solana's spot trading has narrowed to levels close to Binance, and the next goal is to improve the spread performance in the perpetual contracts market. He emphasized that the ultimate market size and product-market fit will depend on demand, with the current focus on reducing technical barriers for developers within the ecosystem.