Get to know the chain - Solana
Calls for Web3 innovation have been getting louder in the tech world today, promising an ambitious future for the financial world and the internet. Bitcoin, and Ethereum, were the initial heroes of the megaverse of Web3. In 2020, Solana picked up steam in the competition because of its superfast ability and low-cost transactions.
In 2017, Anatolky Yakovenko introduced the whitepaper of the Solana platform to the Web3 community. Three years from 2017, the launch of the Solana ledger stole Ethereum’s thunder in the decentralization era. Solana, sailing in the same boat of Blockchain trend, as Ethereum, became the lead actor in the Blockchain space in March 2020.
Even after the Solana blockchain hack in 2022, it got its ball rolling in the Web 3.0 revolution and became the 12th largest crypto in its market cap. As technology advances, it is considered one of the fastest blockchains with a bright future. What is the secret behind Solana’s popularity? How Solana continues to advance in the next iteration of the Internet?
Let us dive deeper to understand the characteristics of the Solana chain and its significant role in the metaverse scheme of things.
Let’s shed some light on the Solana Blockchain
Solana’s first block was created on the 16th of March 2020 and two years later it became the 9th-largest crypto-based platform on the market and is continuing to grow. Currently, Solana is one of the most used blockchains for developing on-chain applications as it is designed for mainstream use by making it an energy-efficient, inexpensive, and fastest transacting network. It is one of the layer 1 networks which means it provides the foundational structure of a blockchain network on which secondary or layer 2 networks can be built.
Solana’s whitepaper comprehended a new time synchronization technique for distributed systems called Proof of History (PoH). In blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, one of the drawbacks to scalability is the time required to reach a consensus on the order of transactions. The co-founder of chain Solana believed in their proposed technique that could automate the transaction ordering process for blockchains, providing a key piece that would enable crypto networks to scale well beyond their capabilities at the time.
Solana’s Consensus mechanism
The Solana blockchain was introduced as a working model of hybrid consensus mechanisms. It uses proof of stake to validate the information and its own innovation proof of history that is a catalyst to the validation process.
The whitepaper of the Solana says:
“ Proof of History is extremely efficient as it uses energy at the same scale as a few google searches and significantly less energy than other regular households use like running a refrigerator.”
Deep dive on Proof of History (PoH)
Solana’s Proof of History (PoH) is a means for improving the efficiency of other mechanisms. The proof of history consensus is primarily based on proof of stake but with a different calculating time. It uses a VDF or a Verifiable Delay Function server that orders the transaction in a blockchain network. A Verifiable Delay Function requires a specific number of sequential steps to evaluate and produces a unique output that can be efficiently and publicly verified.
PoH is a sequence of computations that provides a way to verify the passage of events between two transactions cryptographically. It uses a cryptographically secure function written so that output cannot be predicted from the input, and must be completely executed to generate the output.
Solana is the only blockchain technology that employs the Proof of History algorithm and is therefore incredibly scalable and has a record of processing up to 60k transactions per second.
The Solana consensus working theory would look like this:
Step 1: A validator is selected to create the next block using the PoS mechanism.
Step 2: To fetch the assigned slot to produce a block, the validator spends a max. of 5 seconds (Cryptographic clock)
Step 3: The next validator is picked using the PoS mechanism.
Step 4: The new validator repeats step 2.
This process continues in this fashion which makes Solana faster than Bitcoin and Ethereum. On this system, Solana Foundation has various projects ranging from NFT, Web3, DeFi, and many others. It has even launched its own online store, Solana Pay, which will be the future of decentralized payments
Solana’s NFT- The Greatest Hit so far
Solana is one of the world’s most popular blockchains when it comes to non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance. Solanart is the most popular marketplace with several popular projects like Aurory, SolPunks, and Degenerate Ape Academy and is adored because of its cost efficiency and transaction speed. It has a transaction fee of 3 % for every transaction.
The top NFT projects on Solana include the DeGods which is focused on digital artworks. In DeGods, holders are allowed to stake their NFT for a utility token ($DUST) and mine 10 $DUST per day. When holders convert their DeGod into a DeadGod they get the offer to mine 30 $DUST per day. Aurory is one of in the list of Solana’s top NFT projects. It was the first NFT project to launch on Solana which is a collection of stunning artwork, regular airdrops for holders, and a native token.
Solana has become an ideal chain for builders to try new and wild ideas in the NFT space.
A glimpse of the Solana hack- the largest crypto hack of 2022
Solana ecosystem in August 2022 was hit by the hack, draining millions worth of crypto from 14,000 user wallets. The Solana hack involved compromised private keys that were created, imported, or used in the Slope mobile wallet and that’s why some users who had Phantom wallets were also impacted. A hacker was able to sign transactions on behalf of the owners, possibly resulting from an attack on the supply chain of trusted third-party services. Despite the largest crypto hack, Solana survived the attack and returned to its pace with a decent trading volume of $297,629,089 USD recorded.
Solana has been the lead actor in the blockchain space since its debut. There are more than 350 projects that have been built on the Solana blockchain due to its cheap transaction costs and energy-efficient architecture, giving an edge to projects on its network. In the current scenario, the collapse of the FTX exchange has impacted horribly the value of SOL, the crypto of Solana, and the number of transactions in the blockchain.
Now the major grill is Will Solana recover from the FTX mishap? Will Solana rise again? Does Solana have a future? Put your thinking cap on!
To learn more about Web3 and metaverse, join us today. We’re building a world of Web3 for developers! Just tell us a little bit about yourself to get early access to the Lumos Metaverse! Be a part of the Lumos Metaverse. Join the Whitelist today! REGISTER TODAY!
For more fresh-brewed updates on Web3, join the Lumos Metaverse discord server today and never miss anything.
This is it for today. Stay tuned for more updates on Web3.
