Solana scores social media app guru Nikita Bier to advise with mobile push

Long with its eye on expanding its mobile ecosystem, Solana has gained a potentially significant ally and advisor with deep knowledge of the world of social media app development.

On Tuesday, Nikita Bier took to social media platform X to announce he has joined Solana as an advisor. "Solana has the fundamental building blocks for something to break out on mobile and certainly many apps are making headway," said Bier.

Bier is famous for founding the popular social media app tbh, acquired by Facebook in 2017. After the company, now known as Meta, discontinued the app , Bier relaunched a similar app under the name Gas, which Discord acquired in 2023, according to TechCrunch .

"I’m joining Solana as an advisor to help select companies launch and grow their apps," Bier said Tuesday. "For a couple years I've been discussing with Raj Gokal and [Solana Labs co-founder] ways to get more involved. The ecosystem has now matured to a point where Solana apps can now top the charts."

Solana's designs on expanding its ecosystem through the deployment of mobile devices and apps have a history. Last September, Solana Mobile, a blockchain developer and Solana Labs subsidiary, revealed its second crypto smartphone called “Solana Seeker.” Then this February, the popular Solana-based memecoin platform Pump.fun launched on mobile . 

"The past year has been a watershed moment for consumer, mobile, and retail crypto," Solana co-founder Raj Gokal said in a separate  post on X . "Excited to work with Nikita Bier to accelerate all three to converge."

Bier is also listed as a product growth partner at Lightspeed Ventures, a prolific VC investor in the crypto and blockchain space that has invested in Solana.

"Before tbh and Gas, Nikita launched a number of viral products including Politify—a presidential policy analysis tool—while a student at UC Berkeley. He has been developing consumer-facing websites since his childhood," according to his Lightspeed bio page.