Solana Review: All You Need To Know

Solana is really doing the numbers and making investor smiling. You must have heard about blockchains, the decentralized technology that records every bit of transactions on the network. There are lots of blockchain networks in existence. All these blockchains were enhancements from the first blockchain that ever existed (Bitcoin Blockchain).

Ethereum Blockchain followed after the Bitcoin blockchain, bringing about some new structures and brilliant ideas. As time went on, some issues got associated with these 2 great networks, cost, and speed. Solana came into existence at a time when so many projects made promises but couldn’t stand by it. This network has come with a new feature which is the introduction of a decentralized clock into the blockchain, an enhancement that makes the chain more efficient than you could imagine.

Solana Blockchain Explained

Solana project all began on the Solana Sunny beach of California which is located on the north side of San Diego. It was there that Anatoly Yakovenko spent most of his life exploring the telecommunication field. This was the same person who greatly partook in building a technology that all smartphones use while he worked for 12 years at Qualcomm.

Yakovenko was originally not interested in Bitcoin or Ethereum, nevertheless, something caught his attention badly during his “caffeine-induced fever dream” he discovered that the hash function of the Bitcoin network “SHA256” could be instrumental in creating a decentralized clock right on the blockchain thereby increasing scalability. This new time stamping was neither going to affect the security nor sacrifice the decentralization of the network. This was possible because he wasn’t the first to try out the clock technology as Google and Intel have implemented these technologies up to recent times.

The Solana blockchain is a high-performance technology that gives room for both smart contracts and other decentralized applications. This blockchain utilizes a proof of stake (POS) mechanism, time-stamped transactions, and a reduced entry barrier for efficiency maximization.

With these improvements, Solana could now process over 50-60 transactions with an assumed limit of about 70000 transactions per second. The bitcoin 7TPS and Ethereum 15TP are nothing compared.

Unlike similar projects like the Ethereum 2.0 and the polkadot, Solana operates on a single Blockchain layer without delegating any operation to other attached chains (layer 2). This is proof that the team of developers working on the Solana project has done this with a long-term vision in mind. All thanks to Anatoly Yakovenko’s deep experience having watched multiple telecommunication technologies double their capability every year while he served at Qualcomm.

A team comprising former employees from Qualcomm, Google, Dropbox, and Microsoft as well as similar database technologies implemented by Microsoft and Google, is sure to do well. Part of this project’s inspiration was also drawn from file coin which is also a cryptocurrency project.

Understanding Solana’s PoH and Tower BFT

You must have heard about proof of stake (POS) and proof of work (POW) kind of projects, proof of history (POH) isn’t the same as these, rather PoH is a component of Solana’s POS- proof of stake mechanism. From this, you should know that this project makes use of the proof of stake consensus mechanism and not proof of work.

The PoH component is associated with timestamping transactions as soon as they get added to the Solana block. Every 400ms, a new block is added to the chain in contrast with Bitcoin’s 10minutes and Ethereum’s 15seconds. The decentralized clock is used to reference the timestamp; it is called the ‘SHA256 hash function’. A SHA256 hash is quite popular because it is also used as the proof of work consensus mechanism of Bitcoin.

The uniqueness of this system is the timestamp- creation of repetitive outputs as reference using SHA256. This is opposed to solving (solve) the hash function for the creation of a new block. The technology functions as a “clock tick” happening every 400ms and not one-second clicks like our regular clocks.

This will not be complete without mentioning the Tower BFT. The Tower BFT is the PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Toleration) optimization for the PoH version.

Tower BFT is like a consensus algorithm designed to make profits from the Synchronized clock. It uses PoH as its cryptographic clock, hence casing a consensus to be achieved. This is done without having lots of messaging overhead as well as transaction latency.

What Makes The Solana Blockchain Unique?

For a project to be called Ethereum killer, then it surely has lots of prospects as well as incredible features, because Ethereum is the 2nd largest cryptocurrency judging from the market capitalization.

One of the most amazing features of this blockchain is its incredible ability to handle over 6,000 transactions per second. It’s because of this high-speed ability that this project earned the title “Ethereum killer

Some weeks ago, the “hybrid blockchain” outperformed most of its predecessors when it recorded 24billion volumes of transactions. This project is still not relenting in breaking boundaries. One similarity this technology has with Ethereum is the fact that it was developed to provide an avenue for DApps, these are the heartbeat of decentralized finance (De-Fi).

This still doesn’t take out the fact that it has been able to combine proof of history (PoH) and proof of stake (PoS) mechanisms, providing a faster and highly scalable network without leaving out time efficiency, unlike it’s for runners like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This strategic move has provided a wider and dense number of transactions just in a month than Ethereum has never achieved since its lifetime.

A Deep Dive into the SOL Coin

Sol coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain. This coin has seen a remarkable uptrend this year, soaring from about $1 to a record high of $260 per coin. This native coin of the Switzerland-based protocol is presently ranked as the 5th largest cryptocurrency project with a market capitalization of about $60.04 billion. This is over a 10,000 percent positive traction since the 2020 year. Sol has kept on dominating the cryptocurrency space with never-ending partnerships and campaigns. Of late, lots of new projects, tokens, and NFT’s have used this platform as their preferred base thus pulling in a whole lot of traction.

This coin has continued to be the second-largest social hype while it has remained the hottest Blockchain throughout this year.

Exchanges to Buy SOL Coin

There are lots of Exchanges to purchase Sol from since this coin is a very popular one. So far, the most popular exchange where sol can be purchased is Kraken. This doesn’t take out the fact that the best exchange to purchase this native token remains Binance.

The truth of this matter is that SOL can be purchased on over 65 Exchanges across different trading pairs. So far the most popular exchanges you can purchase from include; Bithumb, HitBTC, Bitfinex, Kucoin, OKEx, FTX, Coinbase, Upbit, Binance, etc.

So far, Binance has continued to remain the best platform to purchase this digital asset as it can be done through lots of trading pairs. Some of these pairs include; SOL/USDT, SOL/BUSD, SOL/BTC, SOL/BNB, SOL/EUR, SOL/USDC, SOL/ETH, SOL/RUB, etc. Binance has a $456.81M trading volume which is 35% volume, now you can see reasons why this exchange is judged the best place to purchase this asset. Here is a simple hack, you can download coin market cap (CMC) or coin Gecko (CG).

Best Wallets to Store SOL

Usually, exchanges provide wallets to store your purchased assets in every circumstance. This means you can store your coins inside the wallet you use for a purchase. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with storing your assets on an exchange. Exchanges are easily hacked since they are centralized and you don’t hold your keys. If you chose to store your assets on an exchange wallet, then consider exchanges with top security. I will advise you store on exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Here are other trusted wallets that provide you with keys where you can keep your purchased asset safe.

Trust wallet

Trust wallet is a decentralized cryptocurrency store that provides you with multiple wallets to keep your coins secure.

You can store your Sol assets on this platform by downloading the trust wallet application. Always keep your 12 passphrases safe as you can only access your wallet with your 12 words passphrase. Losing it is equal to losing your assets.

Meta Mask

MetaMask is another decentralized cryptocurrency application that allows you to store your coins in a secured wallet. It also provides a private phrase that must be kept secret. You can store your cryptocurrencies on this platform.

Binance Wallet

Binance provides a wallet to store your Sol asset as soon as you complete your purchase. This wallet is automatically gotten as soon as you successfully sign up on Binance.

Kucoin

The Kucoin exchange doesn’t only provide you with the opportunity to buy your crypto currencies; it also provides you with a wallet where you can store your purchased coins.

Kraken

Kraken exchange does not only provide a wallet where you can store these assets, it is also an exchange that allows you to purchase tokens with your fiat.

Related: DodgeCoin Review

Should I Buy Solana?

Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile assets that can’t be regulated by any authority. You should be aware of the risks associated with purchasing these digital assets as you might lose your money as well as make profits. Nevertheless, considering the projections of this technology, buying Solana seems to be a great idea.

In as much as it feels positive to bag some of these coins, do not forget to always do your research.

Solana Vs Ethereum Vs Polkadot

One similar characteristic Polakadot shares with Solana is that both projects have been labeled Ethereum killers. Polkadot as well as Solana all drew inspiration from the Ethereum blockchain. Polkadot for instance is labeled the breakaway cryptocurrency since lots of its developers were formally associated with the Ethereum project.

Ethereum, Solana, and Polkadot share a lot of similarities especially that of serving as a platform the hosts lots of DApps and other projects/applications.

The difference between these blockchains remains efficiency, speed, as well as accessibility.

Conclusion

The Solana project is not relenting in making advancements daily. The activities on this blockchain get dense by the day especially now that projects are getting listed on the platform.

From the look of things, this project promises to dominate the cryptocurrency industry for a long time.

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