Soon

• Solana seeks to challenge Ethereum as the reference blockchain for decentralized applications.
• ir recent successes come down to products and partnerships, as well as technological innovations.
• It was founded in March 2020 by former Qualcomm executives.

world of cryptocurrencies is awash with ‘Ethereum killers’, projects that promise to destroy the undisputed leader in blockchain applications. Such boasting can be largely dismissed as a gimmick to attract money and attention, as, for now, there is little evidence that Ethereumel empire faces serious threats. But in recent months, one aspiring contender has been more successful than others: Solana.

Founded in March 2020 by former Qualcomm executives, Solana opened its blockchain to the public earlier this year. Like others vying for the Ethereum crown, including Polkadot, Dfinity, and Cardano, Solana claims to offer a faster and more efficient alternative. But the project stood out for its swift execution and ability to build buzz, prompting its SOL token to rise and top-line investors rushing in this summer with $ 314 million in funding.

It is too early to say if Solana will maintain this momentum or if it can become a serious rival to Ethereum. But it is possible to identify three factors that have driven its rapid growth: technology, products and partnerships, and an intangible quality that we can call the “SBF factor.” Here’s a closer look at these three factors to assess whether it’s time for the crypto world to take Solana seriously.

Solana blockchain technology

hit for Ethereum is that it is slow and expensive. While its versatility and pioneering adoption of smart contract technology has made it very popular, the Ethereum blockchain currently exceeds 15 transactions per second and its ‘gas’ rates skyrocket to absurd levels when the crypto stock heats up.

All potential Ethereum killers promise a faster and cheaper experience. In Solana’s case, this translates to around 50,000 transactions per second and fees that add up to just pennies per transaction. project also aims to address a long-standing problem, expressed in an axiom, that a blockchain can only excel in two out of three attributes: decentralization, security, and scalability.

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Founder Anatoly Yakovenko claims Solana’s breakthrough is the result of “8 key innovations.” While all eight are unlikely to be significant (“8 key innovations” sounds like a phrase made up by marketers), the company’s work on proof of stake and timestamp appears to be a genuine technological result.

Below is a more technical analysis, but the upshot is that Solana seems to have found a way to speed up the consensus process that makes blockchain transactions trustworthy and immutable. Its process is based on something called “history testing,” which allows nodes that validate transactions to do their work at a faster rate. Here’s the more detailed breakdown of a previous one. decipher overview:

“Solana’s implementation of [what it calls Tower Consensus] enforces a global source of time across the blockchain via a second new protocol known as Proof of History (PoH). This essentially provides a chronicle of previous events on the blockchain, ensuring that there is a common record of what happened and when for permanent reference.

“Tower Consensus takes advantage of this synchronized clock to reduce the processing power required to verify transactions, since the timestamps of previous transactions no longer need to be computed. This helps Solana achieve a performance that outshines most competitors (more on that). After you)”.

In practice, this new system means that Solana has already added more transaction blocks to its blockchain than it has added. Ethereum, Bitcoin, Lunar, Algorand, And Cosmos set. Meanwhile, Solana’s promise of a fast and secure blockchain has already spawned a variety of applications for the emerging project.

Products and partners

A big reason for Ethereum’s success is the number of other applications that people have built on top of it. se include games, financial services, multimedia projects, and of course other blockchain projects that rely on Ethereum. ERC-20 protocol for maintaining your own transaction records.

Solana’s ecosystem is much smaller – in June it had around $ 1 billion in assets on deposit as collateral compared to Ethereum’s $ 59 billion. But the project got off to a promising start in terms of developer tools and apps. So far these include a build protocol. NFT Stores: Solana’s supporters, like Onda’s in the ledger, advertise it as a cheaper and greener way to mint non-fungible tokens (unique digital artifacts that are gaining popularity in the sports and art world).

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Solana has also found a potential niche in the realm of decentralized finance or DeFi. In particular, the fast-growing trading platform FTX has launched a decentralized derivatives exchange called Serum on top of Solana, while a Swiss company called Digital Assets AG is using Solana to offer tokenized shares.

In the short time that it has been around, Solana has also impressed by organizing links to various prominent names in the world of cryptocurrencies. se include the messaging app Kik, which announced in April that it would be integrated with the project, as well as Circle and FTX, which together plan to develop their stablecoin operations using Solana.

SBF factor

As noted above, Solana enjoys support on various fronts from FTX, the exchange launched by 29-year-old billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, known in crypto circles as SBF.

approval of SBF, who is also an investor in Solana, is significant because SBF is one of the few larger-than-life figures in an industry that adores them. Like Vitalik Buterin with Ethereum or Changpeng Zhao (CZ) on Binance, SBF has immense charisma on social media to match his crypto genius.

While SBF does not lead Solana’s technical direction, a role that belongs to the underrated Yakovenko: Your role as sponsor and sponsor of the project is immensely valuable in generating enthusiasm and trust. SBF’s presence serves to sprinkle a sprinkle of fairy dust on Solana and gives her a figurehead that other potential Ethereum killers lack. ( leaders of Polkadot, Dfinity, and Cardano share SBF’s splendor but don’t exude similar charisma.)

SBF’s blessing is no guarantee that Solana will be successful in the long run, of course, but it helps explain Solana’s remarkable rise in a short period of time.

bottom line

Is Solana the real Ethereum killer? No, especially since the idea of ​​an Ethereum killer is wrong at first. In the absence of a terrible misstep or complete failure to implement its proof-of-stake ambitions, a step that should largely resolve complaints about its speed, there is no reason to think that anyone could replace Ethereum anytime soon. term. platform is simply too popular and too entrenched to imagine being abandoned by the cryptocurrency world in large numbers.

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But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for other blockchains to give Ethereum a serious run for its money in the long run. As it stands, Solana is one of many dwarves who aspire to challenge the giant. But in these early days, Solana may have moved to the top of potential rivals, thanks to technical excellence, crafty partnerships, and a charismatic champion.

Post sponsored by Saidler & Co.

This sponsored post was created by Decrypt Studio. Learn more about collaborating with Decrypt Studio.

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