We all know that Ethereum is one of the most used and sought after blockchains systems in the world. Every now and then, there is always one currency that enters the crypto market with a promising look and a menacing purpose: to dethrone Ethereum from the privileged seat on which it sits. It's no surprise: through the years we have experienced a long list of potential Ethereum killers, from Cardano to Tron, from Cosmos to Polka Dot.
And then there is Solana. This new blockchain could be listed among the aforementioned ones, except for a series of features that may prove a point and confirm the overall enthusiasm surrounding this new arrival. Let’s take a deeper look.
What is Solana?
Back in 2017, Anatoly Yakovenko, a former Qualcomm employee, founded with Raj Gokal, Eric Williams and Greg Fitzgerald the Solana platform, a web-scale blockchain aimed to provide fast, scalable, secure, decentralized apps and marketplaces. Their focus on scalability moved the quartet of developers to join forces with numerous players in the field. One of them, Sam Bankman-Fried, is the founder of the crypto-exchange FTX and A16z, a giant venture capital firm. Its currency is SOL. Currently, there are around 260 million SOL tokens in the market. The price of a SOL token is $33 and its market cap hovers around $9,245,858,000.
Ethereum’s issues are not Solana’s
Ethereum is one of the most popular blockchain systems in the crypto-world. Still, it has its issues, and even the most ether-enthusiast cannot help but notice how lagging the platform is when it comes to scalability. Moreover, Ethereum is experiencing soaring transaction fees.
Solana is the most scalable blockchain in existence
Ethereum can handle just 15 transactions per second. If we compare it to Bitcoin's sluggish performance of 7 TPS, Ethereum is clearly the winner.
Let's now compare Ethereum's TPS with Solana. The latter blockchain can offer a staggering 65,000 transactions per second. 65,000 against 15. This makes Solana the fastest blockchain in the market today.
Solana provides a low gas fee
If we take into consideration that gas fees for a transaction on Ethereum typically hover around $15, Solana has an average gas fee of around $0.00001. Such results make one wonder why so many investors have chosen Solana over other platforms.
What is Solana's Proof of History?
Solana has implemented a new consensus method known as Proof of History (PoH). We know that PoW and PoS are largely used by the most popular blockchain networks.
Proof of History aims to unburden the load of the blockchain nodes in processing blocks. How? By encoding time itself into the system.
Using a cryptographic concept named Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs), PoH can elaborate exactly how long it takes to perform the tasks on the blockchain, and provides a chronicle of all the past events registered on the blockchain. This method reduces the processing power required to verify every transaction. The recording of each transaction takes around 0.4 seconds, while Ethereum takes 5 minutes.
Furthermore, Solana combines PoH with Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance (Tower BFT), a security protocol that allows participants to freeze tokens in order to validate a PoH hash. If a participant votes in favor of a fork that doesn't match the PoH records, the protocol penalizes him.
How will it fare in the future?
We are moving towards a faster world. Especially in the decentralized applications environment, speed is the key to a successful future. Right now, Solana is really bound to experience constant growth, and has the potential to compete with both Ethereum and Bitcoin.
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