✨ To discuss this topic, we first need to understand @solana's PoH (Proof of History) consensus protocol:
The PoH mechanism itself is Solana's core innovation, which bypasses the problem of node synchronization time by timestamping transactions through a series of continuous hash values. In simple terms, PoH is like a clock that never stops, allowing all nodes to progress at the same rhythm, theoretically capable of infinitely increasing throughput.
However, under the PoH mechanism, nodes need to synchronize hash clocks and handle massive amounts of data, which means that the hardware performance requirements are extremely high. Ordinary nodes cannot afford the high hardware costs, and only a few capital-rich supernodes can afford high-performance servers, exacerbating the trend of node centralization. At the same time, due to extreme reliance on supernodes in the network to maintain the operation of the 'clock', once nodes become over-leveraged or the network congests, it can lead to outages.
During the DeFi explosion from 2021 to 2022, Solana experienced a series of outages because the expansion speed of the Solana ecosystem far exceeded its infrastructure capacity. A large number of DeFi projects rushed in, from lending protocols to DEX, from aggregators to derivatives. The demand for real-time settlement and high-concurrency transactions from these applications easily caused network paralysis. After the collapse of FTX, DeFi projects on Solana fled one after another, leading to a rapid hollowing out of its ecosystem, becoming a 'ghost chain.' This was also the most criticized ailment of Solana at that time.
At this point, some may wonder: with so many meme coins on Solana now, why hasn't it crashed? This is because meme trading itself has far lower performance requirements on the chain compared to DeFi, which ironically exposes its ecological degradation. 😂
————————————————————
✨ Returning to the main topic, why would abandoning PoH and turning to Alpenglow (PoS) be the biggest transformation since Solana's inception?
First, let me briefly introduce what Alpenglow is:
The Alpenglow consensus mechanism introduces the Rotor data transmission protocol, reducing Solana's block finalization delay from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds (median). The most important point is that it completely abandons old components such as PoH and TowerBFT, transitioning to the PoS mechanism through Votor voting logic and reconstructing the core protocol framework.
We know that traditional finance is entering the crypto world through the RWA channel, and ETH's Pectra upgrade, along with Solana's abandonment of PoH for Alpenglow's PoS mechanism, are essentially tickets to entry handed to traditional banking. What do banks need? Not a hacker chain that may crash at any time, but a public chain with high security and predictable returns.
The #PoS mechanism empowers nodes by staking tokens. The more assets that participate in staking, the higher the cost of malfeasance, the lower the risk of network forks, and the higher the security. Higher security attracts more assets to be staked, forming a virtuous cycle—this design of interest binding essentially replaces the computational power competition of Bitcoin's PoW with economic games, thus making the cost of malfeasance far higher than that of the PoW mechanism (by the way: let alone the PoH mechanism).
The deeper reason lies in the core logic of PoS: earning interest on stored coins allows banks to earn predictable returns through token staking. The essence of finance is making money from money. Staking is risk control, and earning interest is profit, which is what the banking industry needs the most, or rather, what RWA needs the most. (Although SOL currently also has node staking to earn interest, returning to the previous topic, safety, safety, and more safety!)
This is also why I have been talking about RWA happening on ETH, or rather, happening in the PoS mechanism.
————————————————————
✨ In summary, as I have been discussing, although Solana has been labeled as the 'Wall Street chain', the enthusiastic capital cannot hide the fatal flaws of the PoH underlying protocol—while the whole network is competing to become small generals, the number of DeFi protocols on Solana continues to shrink. The prosperity supported by meme coins is essentially a crisis of ecological hollowing. If Solana continues to stick to the PoH mechanism, it will remain trapped in the cycle of 'outage-repair-outage' and is likely to disappear in the third wave of DeFi.
🔥 Now, the transformation of the Alpenglow consensus mechanism from PoH to PoS marks that Solana will completely bid farewell to the historical burden of relying on high hardware performance and centralized nodes, and instead reconstruct the core protocol framework through Votor voting logic and Rotor data transmission protocol. This will pave the way for large-scale RWA applications on the SOL chain while achieving a comprehensive revolution from the underlying architecture to performance.
💥 More importantly, the introduction of the PoS mechanism significantly enhances network security through a staking economic model, binding the cost of malfeasance to assets, forming a virtuous cycle, thereby attracting traditional financial institutions to participate in ecological construction with the logic of 'earning interest on stored coins', re-anchoring the public chain's positioning on high security and predictable returns.
If Solana can rely on Alpenglow to continuously optimize protocol stability and ecological diversity, this transformation of the consensus mechanism may truly become the most critical turning point since Solana's inception.
