Solana is a blockchain network that is known for fast transactions and high throughput. Founded in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko from Solana Labs, Solana (SOL) uses an exclusive method of ordering transactions to improve its speed, where users can pay their transaction fees and interact with smart contracts.

Solana virtual currency on blockchain
Source: AS

The creators hoped to establish a trustless and distributed system that would allow for more scalability. The team that is currently handling Solana have come from major players in the tech world including Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Dropbox.

What makes Solana different?

The efficiency of tracking orders of transactions is crucial in cryptocurrencies. While Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other currencies suffer from scalability and speed issues, Solana uses a method known as Proof of History (PoH), which allows it to handle thousands of transactions per second.

SOL Market Price
Source: crypto.com

Proof of History is a departure from the process Bitcoin uses as part of its Proof of Work consensus mechanism. Blocks on Bitcoin are basically large groups of unordered transactions, and each BTC miner adds the time and date to the block they mine based on their local clock. However, using the method of ordering the transactions in a chain of hashes, validators process and transmit less information in each block. This significantly reduces the time of confirming a new block.

How does Solana work?

First, transactions are inputted to the Leader. The Leader will then sequence the messages and orders them efficiently so that it can be processed by other nodes. Then, the transactions are executed on the current state that stores in the RAM. The Leader will then publish the transactions and signature of the final state to Verifiers, who will then execute the same transactions on their copies of the state and publish their signatures of the state if it receives confirmation. After that, published confirmations will then serve as votes for the consensus algorithm.

What is the Sol Token?

The SOL token is the native currency in Solana’s ecosystem. It can pass to nodes within the Solana cluster in exchange for running on-chain programs or validating its output. SOL can also perform micropayments known as lamports. Currently, the supply of SOL circulating is 26 million. The maximum supply of SOL caps at 489 million SOL.

Solana Ticker
Source: AS

SOL tokens can be stored on the sollet.io crypto wallet, which was developed by Serum Academy. One can also use the Trust Wallet for mobile devices, as well as other SPL-supporting wallets. One who wishes to stake his or her SOL will need to use a wallet that supports staking, such as SolFlare wallet. This will allow the owner to create a stake account and delegate SOL tokens to a validator.

Conclusion

The beauty of Solana is that it solves the many traditional issues that earlier blockchain technology experiences. Solana offers a new structure for verifying transactions and a more efficient consensus algorithm. This makes the platform a strong contender against Bitcoin and Ethereum, as it has already manifested rapid advancements in the crypto industry in just 10 years.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *