What is Solana? Can it Be the Next Big Cryptocurrency?

Ethereum is one of the most popular and in-demand blockchains out there. Despite that, many blockchains are claiming to be Ethereum killers. The list of these blockchains includes Kadano, Polka Dots, Cosmos, among other names. Having said that, today we are taking a look at a fairly new project that is claiming to be the Ethereum killer, Solana.

The reason why Solana is gaining so much attention is that it is backed by the founder of a popular exchange called FTX. Sam Bankman, one of the founders of FTX, is one of the world's youngest Crypto Billionaires. The reason why Solana has been in the news is that recently it raised Pie million dollars, which is $314million. One of the founders of Solana is an Indian named Raj Gokal, an ex-Qualcomm engineer.

The Tech Behind Solana

A lot of people are of the belief that the tech behind Solana is Ethereum killer. Even though there is a very slim chance of Ethereum dying, Solona's tech is something to look at. To start with, let's look at the transaction per second. Ethereum can do 15 transactions per second, whereas the competitors like Polka Dot can a 1,000 transactions per second. Solana on the other hand can do 65,000 transactions per second. Adding to it, transaction fees play a major role in any transaction. Ethereum can charge up to $15 per transaction. Polka Dot can go up to $1 but Solana charges a transaction fee of $0.0015. This might sound too good to be true for a lot of people.

Solana claims to be the most performant and permission-less blockchain in the world. This has been achieved by several technologies that are considered breakthroughs in blockchain tech. Solana uses a technology called "Proof of History". The team responsible for building it includes previous employees from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel, etc. In order to understand the technology behind Solana, we have to understand something called the Blockchain Scalability Trilemma.

The idea behind this concept is that there are 3 desirable qualities of any blockchain, Decentralization, Security and Scalability. The trilemma claims that only two of these qualities can be maximized, and that has to be at the expense of the third. This means that you can have extremely high security, be highly decentralized, but you will have to compromise on scalability. All blockchain systems have to make some sort of trade-off depending on the application and the use of the blockchain.

Solana claims to have solved the blockchain trilemma. It is highly decentralized, it is very sure, and it is scalable, all at the same time. The secret to achieving this lies in the mechanism called the proof of history.

What is Proof of History?

The decentralization works because of the elimination of any third party using cryptography. The same can be used to keep a track of the passage of time a.k.a proof of history. This uses a mathematical function that takes 0.4 seconds to give results. All the blocks in the blockchain are 0.4 seconds apart and the data is taken from every user so no one needs a mediator.

Proof of history is just one of the things that make Solana different. There are a few more things to the blockchain.

Scalability

Solana is very fast, it is the fastest blockchain out there. However, Solana has devised a way to keep getting faster without making any major changes to the architecture. They have done it by believing in Moore's law. The law basically states that every year the transistors in a circuit will double, and Solana is designed to exploit this idea. Solana runs processes parallelly in the GPU cores of a system. Meaning that if cores in the GPU keep doubling every year, Solana can keep getting faster without changing anything.

Speed

Solana is the only blockchain that has the transactional capability closest to the internet that is known to people today. 0.4 seconds and you are done. You can see it to believe it live on the Solana block explorer. Where you can see the slot time and the speed at which a new block gets added to the chain.

Validators

Solana currently has 600-700 validators, which is significantly less than Ethereum. There are over 11,000 validators on Ethereum. There is no set number on Solana that you need to be a validator. Any member holding any Solana is eligible to be a validator.

All of this looks promising, and Solana can become the next big thing in crypto. However, not to forget that crypto and blockchain is very volatile, so keeping a track of the progress can be a ride.