What is SOLANA?
INTRODUCTION
The buzz around Solana has been growing steadily in the past few months. It boasts to be an energy-efficient and scalable blockchain protocol that has garnered much interest from cryptocurrency enthusiasts and enterprise giants. Since its launch in 2020, Solana has powered over 50 billion transactions representing about $11 billion in total locked value. It's hardly surprising that Solana has been compared with the financial heavyweight, Visa, which processed about 160 billion transactions in the first three quarters of 2021. So the question is, what makes Solana that promising? And why should we care? Let's find out.
WHAT IS SOLANA?
Solana is a smart contract platform that aims to be the fastest in existence. Its goal is not just speed but also security and scalability. Solana’s blockchain claims to be able to handle up to 50,000 TPS (transactions per second) with an average block time of one minute! This speed allows cryptocurrency users/developers to use cases that we can imagine today and opens doors for completely new ones such as on-chain prediction markets, leaving all other smart contract platforms in their shadow.
HOW IS SOLANA ACHIEVING THIS?
Solana developed their consensus algorithm called Proof-of-History (PoH). It is a variation of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm that allows participants to stake SOL tokens in return for voting rights on the blockchain.
Solana also created a new way to store data on their blockchain called pruning. Pruning is a technique where unnecessary information is removed from nodes after being verified and added to the ledger. This makes sure that only the necessary data is stored on Solana's blockchain, thus allowing for faster transactions and scalability.
To achieve high speeds, Solana is not using traditional blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Instead, it is opting for something called light clients, which allow users to verify transactions without having to download/store the entire blockchain.
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH HYPE AROUND SOLANA?
Solana is the first blockchain protocol that can scale to meet global commerce needs. The team worked on this for years, and they have already demonstrated impressive results.
The Solana protocol can process up to 50,000 transactions per second. This is significantly faster than any other blockchain protocol on the market today. It also uses less energy, which makes it more sustainable.
Solana also has a very strong team behind it. They have experience in both the blockchain and traditional software industries. This gives them a unique perspective on building a successful blockchain protocol.
The final reason there is so much hype around Solana is that its token sale was one of the most successful in history. The team raised over $25 million in just a few minutes. This shows that there is a lot of interest in this project and that people believe in its potential.
WHAT ARE THE LAYER 2 PROJECTS RELEVANT TO SOLANA?
The Solana network is a layer-one blockchain project. What does that mean? Well, it means Solana runs on its own blockchain and therefore cannot use any off-chain solutions to solve scaling issues as many other projects do. It also means Solana uses an entirely different consensus mechanism than most of the coins you may be familiar with; one called Proof of History (PoH).
WHAT ARE THE STAR TOKENS?
Star tokens are the native utility token for Solana. They are used to transfer value and power across all elements of the Star Protocol ecosystem: from solarians, to star atlas, to games based on sol-chain technology. They include StarLaunch(the first insured IDO launchpad for SOLANA), Star Atlas, StarSnuppy, SolStar, SOLASTAR etc.
WHO IS BACKING THE SOLANA PROJECT?
Solana is a project backed by major players in the tech sector that share its vision of creating an efficient, scalable and secure blockchain. They received support from well-known names in Venture Capital like Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz. SBF or Silicon Valley Blockchain Fund was established to help Solana grow their ecosystem by providing funding for projects building on top of Solana's platform while Alameda labs provide infrastructure solutions to further enhance Solana's performance via side-chain scaling solutions as well as security audits done through static analysis tools.
WHAT IS SOLANA USED FOR?
Solana has a wide range of applications. Here are some of the benefits.
Non-fungible tokens(NFTs): SOL is the perfect solution for issuing NFTs. Because SOL is scalable and has a high throughput, it can handle the large volume of transactions that are associated with NFTs.
Data storage: Solana can also be used to store data. This makes it a good choice for applications that need to store a high volume of data.
Decentralized apps(dApps): Solana can be used to create decentralized apps. Different projects use this to build their own blockchain.
Payments: Solana can be used to process payments, very useful for businesses that want to accept payments online.
Solana doesn't have significant flaws. However, some investors have questioned it's reliability after the "intermittent instability" announced in September. Additionally, it has fewer projects compared to Ethereum as it is younger
HOW CAN I PURCHASE SOL TOKENS?
You can purchase SOL tokens on the bit.com platform or mobile app using USD, BTC or ETH. Once you deposit the currency of your choice via an in-wallet transfer to our wallet address, we will credit it instantly into your account, and you should see this reflected as a positive balance after about a minute. Our internal state management is updated every second, which means any transaction would be visible immediately through our intuitive user interface with real-time balances available at all times.