What is Solana blockchain? A complete guide

What is Solana?

Learning what is Solana can be very helpful, since this blockchain has taken the world by storm in recent years. As you will notice from Solana, the blockchain increased in popularity over the years, and now it’s one of the top blockchains you can access. Developed by Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana was made with the idea of improving upon Ethereum and it has similar features. The first version of Solana appeared in 2017, with a full launch in March 2020. Nowadays, Solana neighbors around top 10 when it comes to the most popular cryptocurrencies.

Why is Solana different?

When you check the crypto news Solana, you will notice it has a lot of similarities with platforms like Ethereum. However, Solana has a proof of history mechanism that improves upon proof of work. Instead of the old system, here you consume way less energy, sometimes up to 99.9% less. Solana also relies on staking as a way to define new blocks. These staked tokens are used as a collateral until any validators will reach a consensus regarding the next block.

Moreover, with its blend of proof of history and proof of stake, you have a very fast transaction time. The proof of history system relies on timestamps as a way to define Solana chain blocks. It’s a very innovative system made from the ground up to deliver secure, fast and efficient computations.

Comparing Solana to Ethereum

Solana is similar to Ethereum in many ways. For example, it has special contracts, which help you run NFTs or decentralized apps. Aside from staking which is a part of Ethereum, Solana also uses proof of history. And, as we said, it also has much faster speeds when compared to Ethereum. Many see the Solana platform as an improvement over Ethereum, especially when it comes to needing less energy, but also increasing transaction speeds.

The Solana token SOL

Once you learn what is Solana, it’s a good idea to know what is the Solana Token. The token is called SOL, and there is a total supply of 511.6 million tokens. 355 million are already on the market. SOL token pricing is around $21, and the market cap is $8,597,698,721. Unlike other fluctuating tokens, Solana is known for its stability, which makes it a solid investment when compared to other tokens.

The SOL token also has fractional amounts, these are called lamports. A lamport comes with a value of 0.000000001 SOL. The name lamport comes from Leslie Lamport, which is a computer scientist that brought lots of insights in the distributed systems environment.

Solana does an excellent job when it comes to building upon the Ethereum platform, while enhancing it with some much-needed features. On top of that, the platform also has validators, and they can validate transactions based on the number of tokens they hold. Having much faster transaction times and lowering the network congestion comes as highly important, and it can provide excellent solutions in the long term. Every transaction on the Solana platform is fully timestamped and it can be verified very fast.

Solana official website: https://solana.com/