Solana is a highly functional open source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions. The high throughput Solana blockchain based on the Proof of History (PoH) and Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus. Built by a team of networking engineers, Solana aims to become the blockchain infrastructure for modern internet applications.
What is the Solana protocol?
The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralised app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.
Because of the innovative hybrid consensus model, Solana enjoys interest from small-time traders and institutional traders alike. A significant focus for the Solana Foundation is to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale.
Who Are the Founders of Solana?
Anatoly Yakovenko is the most important person behind Solana. His professional career started at Qualcomm, where he quickly moved up the ranks and became senior staff engineer manager in 2015. Later on, his professional path shifted, and Yakovenko entered a new position as a software engineer at Dropbox.
In 2017, Yakovenko started working on a project which would later materialise as Solana. He teamed up with his Qualcomm colleague Greg Fitzgerald, and they founded a project called Solana Labs. Attracting several more former Qualcomm colleagues in the process, the Solana protocol and SOL token were released to the public in 2020.
What Makes Solana Unique?
One of the essential innovations Solana brings to the table is the proof-of-history (PoH) consensus developed by Anatoly Yakovenko. This concept allows for greater scalability of the protocol, which in turn boosts usability.
Solana is known in the cryptocurrency space because of the incredibly short processing times the blockchain offers. Solana’s hybrid protocol allows for significantly decreased validation times for both transaction and smart contract execution. With lightning-fast processing times, Solana has attracted a lot of institutional interest as well. One of its biggest features is its scalability in which Solana is able to process over 700,000 transactions per second. Its high throughput capability appeals to high frequency traders, which are spearheaded by FTX and Alameda Research.
The Solana protocol is intended to serve both small-time users and enterprise customers alike. One of Solana’s main promises to customers is that they will not be surprised by increased fees and taxes. The protocol is designed in such a way as to have low transaction costs while still guaranteeing scalability and fast processing.
Combined with the longstanding professional expertise creators Anatoly Yakovenko and Greg Fitzgerald bring to the project, Solana is ranked number 7 in the CoinMarketCap ranking as of September 2021.
This came on the back of an impressive bull run, where Solana price gained over 700% since mid-July 2021. The launch of the Degenerate Ape NFT collection sent SOL price to an all-time high (ATH) above $60, and it has been climbing since, largely due to higher developer activity on the Solana ecosystem, greater institutional interest, growing DeFi ecosystem, and the rise of the NFTs and gaming vertical on Solana. Solana price rose to an ATH of $216 on Sept. 9, 2021.
What is the controversy surrounding Solana protocol?
Solana has received much praise for its speed and performance, and has even been tipped as a rival that can compare to Ethereum and challenge the dominant smart contract platform. However, the network has been plagued by repeated outages that have impaired its price and aspirations to be the "Visa of crypto." Furthermore, its ecosystem is accused of favouring venture capital investors with unfair tokenomics.
This has led to a retrace in the price of SOL as of February 2022, and more short-term bearish price action cannot be ruled out. However, in the long run, Solana should appreciate thanks to strong support from exchanges like FTX.
What can I do with my Solana (SOL) token?
Solana's native currency is SOL. Solana (SOL) is used to pay for transaction fees and staking in order to support the network.
What is the future of Solana?
Solana crypto price experienced a hyperbolic growth in 2021. With the advent of multichain and increased adoption of DeFi and NFT, Solana managed to capture a large market share. Developers were attracted by the technical underlying and started building dapps such as Star Atlas, Mercurial, Orca, Saber, and more. Yield farming on Solana caught on shortly after that as a way to attract liquidity and activities to the network. In 2022, it remains to be seen if Solana and its ecosystem of dapps is able to capture market share.
While Solana has been on a high note, it did experience some setbacks with network outages lasting as long as over 16 hours on September 15th, 2021. The Solana team and node operators coordinated a reset in order to revive the network. Despite that, Solana coin managed to remain steady above $150 after the incident occured.
