The Solana chain breaks the impossible triangle of blockchain and creates a fast, low-cost and decentralized public chain network. Although Solana suffered a major blow from the bankruptcy of FTX at the end of 2022, it is still continuing to work hard to find various opportunities. , such as releasing Web3 mobile phones, cooperating with VISA, and importing Solana Pay into Shopify, etc., to continuously strengthen the ecosystem and get rid of the impact of the FTX incident as soon as possible.
What is Solana (SOL Coin)
Solana is a high-performance public blockchain network founded by Anatoly Yakovenko in 2017. The goal is to become a secure, high-speed, and low-cost public chain to support the future decentralized network world and solve the low cost of the Ethereum blockchain. Efficiency issues provide a foundation for a wider range of Dapps.
The biggest reason why Solana has been able to rise rapidly is that it breaks the impossible triangle of blockchain, that is, "security, decentralization, and efficiency."
Most public blockchain networks usually only have the means to satisfy two of these mechanisms, and Solana uses a consensus mechanism called Proof of History to achieve high throughput while maintaining decentralization and security. and low latency.
How does Solana work? Why is Solana called the “Ethereum killer”?
The Solana network achieves high throughput and low-latency transaction processing by integrating multiple innovative technologies and protocols. The more important ones are the Proof of History (PoH) consensus algorithm, Tower BFT consensus algorithm and parallel processing mechanism:
Proof of History (PoH): The consensus algorithm uses a cryptographic clock to achieve fast transaction confirmation times. This algorithm timestamps each transaction so that nodes can quickly verify whether the transaction is legal and valid.
Each transaction is timestamped, and the clock keeps track of all previous transactions. This allows nodes on the network to immediately confirm the legitimacy of new transactions.
Tower BFT consensus algorithm: It allows nodes to efficiently reach consensus on network status. It is optimized compared to traditional Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) to meet Solana's high-performance requirements.
Written in the Rust programming language: Rust is known for its performance and safety.
These advantages of Solana have been called the "Ethereum killer" by some, as it surpassed Ethereum in terms of speed, throughput, and scalability, becoming a popular choice among developers and users in the past few years.
However, with the upgrade of Ethereum 2.0 and the rapid development of Layer 2, the performance of the Ethereum ecosystem has gradually improved.
Solana Features
High throughput: According to official information, Solana can handle more than 65,000 transactions per second.
Low Transaction Costs: Transaction costs can be reduced to less than $0.00025.
Fast transaction confirmation: Solana’s unique consensus mechanism and technical design enable transactions to be confirmed in an instant, providing an instant experience.
Scalability: Solana’s architecture and design allow the platform to scale as users and transaction volumes increase, while maintaining efficient operation.
Support for smart contracts: The DeFi ecosystem continues to grow.
High security: Using the smart contract language Rust and the hybrid consensus mechanism to improve security.
SOL Token Economics
Token Name SOL Token Type Public Chain Coin Issuance Date 2019 Issuance Price $0.22 Total Supply 550 Million Tokens Used to Pay Gas, Governance Voting, and Pledge Income
SOL Coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain and is used for payments, transactions, participation in governance, and more within the Solana ecosystem. Holding SOL tokens means owning part of the governance rights of the Solana network. As of September 2023, the total market capitalization of SOL coins is approximately $8 billion, ranking approximately 10th in the cryptocurrency market.
Solana wallet operation tutorial
Here are the steps to use the main Solana wallet:
Download wallets that support Solana, such as Phantom and OKX Web3 wallets.
Create a new Solana wallet account.
Write down your mnemonic phrase as a backup.
Buy SOL tokens and transfer to wallet (can be purchased from the exchanges mentioned above)
Start operating related ecology.
Phantom is the most popular wallet in the Solana ecosystem and has recently undergone a major product revision and upgrade. Introduced a more modern interface and smooth user experience.
In addition to the Solana network, the new version also adds comprehensive support for the Ethereum and Polygon public chain ecosystems, enabling cross-chain asset management.
Solana popular ecological introduction
Raydium
Raydium is an early AMM decentralized exchange in the Solana ecosystem, similar to Ethereum’s Uniswap.
Raydium provides a decentralized trading protocol for trading and liquidity mining. Users can provide liquidity for SOL network ecosystem tokens on Raydium and earn income.
Orca
Orca is another DEX on Solana. Orca is similar to Raydium, but has faster transaction speeds and a more streamlined interface design. It is currently the DEX with the highest TVL on the Solana chain.
Solend
Solend is the largest lending and deposit protocol in the Solana ecosystem. Users can deposit tokens to earn income, or use deposits as collateral for collateralized borrowing.
Marinade Finance
Marinade Finance is the liquidity staking protocol of the Solana ecosystem. It provides a way to mortgage SOL tokens and obtain higher returns. The mortgaged SOL tokens will be automatically invested in DeFi to obtain transaction fee income, and users can easily earn passive income.
As of now, Marinade Finance is the DeFi protocol with the largest amount of locked positions in the Solana ecosystem.
Magic Eden
Magic Eden is one of the popular NFT markets on Solana. It provides a convenient platform for "users" and "creators" to create, issue and trade Solana NFTs. Magic Eden has become an important pillar in the Solana NFT ecosystem.
Note: Magic Eden currently also supports Bitcoin Ordinals, Ethereum and Polygon NFT markets.
Tensor
Tensor is the Solana NFT market that emerged this year. It specially designs different interface systems for general users and professional users, and is widely loved by Solana users.
In addition, Tensor also launched the same strategy as Blur, using airdrop rewards to attract users to perform related operations. Earlier this year, the transaction volume even exceeded Solana NFT market leader Magic Eden.
Solana 2022 – 2023 Recent Updates
Solana will be strongly impacted by FTX in 2022
Solana suffered a series of setbacks in 2022, the most serious of which was the collapse of FTX.
FTX and the market maker behind it, Alameda Research, are the largest institutions supporting the Solana ecosystem. The collapse has dealt a huge blow to Solana, causing cracks in the ecological capital chain.
Although the Solana ecosystem has suffered a major blow in 2022, according to DeFiLlama data, the overall ecological TVL has begun to gradually grow. The overall ecological lock-up volume ranks 10th among public chains and 2nd among non-EVM ecological networks. Second only to the Tron blockchain network.
Solana physical phone
In 2022, Solana launched its first physical mobile phone, Solana Saga. The Solana Saga is a physical phone designed for Web3 that comes with the Solana Wallet and Solana Browser.
Built-in hardware wallet to safely store private keys.
Intuitive Web3 app store.
Provide a safer and more convenient Web3 mobile experience.
However, Saga was initially priced at US$1,000. According to Saga’s hardware specifications, this price was not much advantageous compared to other Android phones or iPhones, so actual sales were not as good as expected. However, Saga officials announced in August this year At that time, it announced that it would reduce the price of Saga by about 60%. Currently, the Saga mobile phone can be purchased for only US$599.
Although Saga mobile phone sales are not as popular as expected, which is a huge blow to them, this is the first time that the Web3 world has been linked to the Web2 world in a user-friendly way, which is a historic step.
Summary: Solana’s current situation and future
In summary, although Solana will encounter a major test at the end of 2022, Solana still has a chance to stand out in the market competition with its advantages of speed and efficiency.
For example, Visa, the global credit card company giant, recently announced that it will expand the settlement business of the encrypted stable currency USDC to the Solana blockchain. It is the second public chain network to join the project after the Ethereum network.
Shopify, a well-known e-commerce platform, will introduce Solana Pay, a decentralized, peer-to-peer payment protocol launched by Solana Labs in the next few months.
It can be seen from the above actions that the Solana team is still working hard to find various opportunities and grow the ecosystem to escape the impact of the FTX incident as soon as possible.
