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Solana | On the Rise
There’s been a lot of discussions lately over the cryptocurrency $SOL, and I think that it’s about time we dive deep. Bitcoin may have started all of the hype around crypto in the first place, but that doesn’t make $BTC the be-all-end-all. The major difference between Bitcoin & Solana is that while Bitcoin utilizes a feature called nLocktime to postdate transactions using a timestamp, Solana utilizes it to postdate transactions with block height. “Block height turns out to be an instance of what's being called a Verifiable Delay Function in cryptography circles. It's a cryptographically secure way to say time has passed. In Solana, we use a far more granular verifiable delay function, a SHA 256 hash chain, to checkpoint the ledger and coordinate consensus.” It’s important to understand this concept as it is the major reason why Solana is able to be secure and process 710,000 transactions per second (tps), while Bitcoin cannot.
Further, a major component of the Solana infrastructure is something called a cluster:
- “A cluster is a set of computers that work together and can be viewed from the outside as a single system. A Solana cluster is a set of independently owned computers working together (and sometimes against each other) to verify the output of untrusted, user-submitted programs. A Solana cluster can be utilized any time a user wants to preserve an immutable record of events in time or programmatic interpretations of those events.”
- “A $SOL.X is the name of Solana's native token, which can be passed to nodes in a Solana cluster in exchange for running an on-chain program or validating its output. The system may perform micropayments of fractional SOLs, which are called lamports. They are named in honor of Solana's biggest technical influence, Leslie Lamport. A lamport has a value of 0.000000001 SOL.”
What’s great about Solana is that it really embraces decentralization, and offers people and corporations the opportunity to operate outside of the current mainstream monetary system. While corporations like $FB are buying up $AMD chips and utilizing their data centers to build out the metaverse, decentralized solutions like $SOL, $MANA.X, $FIL.X, $SAND & $AXS are quickly gaining traction, as they present entirely new & novel technological capabilities to the public.
A recent development in Solana’s adoption has been OddKey, a new creator-focused Solana-based NFT marketplace.
- "OddKey—a tweaked portmanteau of “Todd” and “Aoki,” McFarlane told Decrypt—will be a curated NFT marketplace focused solely on creator-owned properties. No third-party licenses will make the cut, nor will knock-offs, and the co-founders will launch their own collectibles along with welcoming as-yet-unannounced creators from across the entertainment world."
- "OddKey is powered by Solana’s Metaplex NFT protocol, and Aoki said they chose Solana over competing platforms (such as the leading Ethereum) due to aspects like cheaper fees and much less energy consumption from its proof-of-stake consensus model. With low transaction fees, Aoki said, artists on the platform won’t feel like they have to sell only at high prices."
If you know anything about $ETH, then you know that gas fees are extremely expensive, and have been the major reason why people get frustrated when minting NFTs. Given that $SOL costs so much less, it makes sense why Todd McFarlane & Steve Aoki would collaborate to build a Solana-based NFT platform. Another NFT marketplace, OpenSea, hit $10B in total volume, which means the future is bright for OddKey.
Other news worth mentioning is this recent announcement: "Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal collectively announced (at first) a $50 million fund with Solana Ventures to invest in Web 3.0 social media technology today." People are clearly fed up with the current centralized tech powerhouses and are open to trying and funding new technologies.
Whether this is your first time learning about Solana or not, this will surely NOT be your last.
Decrypt
What Is Solana? A Scalable, Decentralized Network for Dapps - Decrypt
Solana boasts impressive speeds and a burgeoning dapp ecosystem, but it's still on the proving grounds.
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