You might have heard about Solana along with some terms like 'Decentralization' , 'Crypto' , 'GM' , 'Web3'. Very Fancy right? But do you actually know what is Solana and why is it important in current gen? Let's get into it.
Basics
Blockchain - A digital database or ledger that is distributed among the nodes of a peer-to-peer network, basically it's a database mechanism which has a transparent information sharing.
Cryptography - A way to encrypt something, might have came across 128-bit encryption, yep same !
Cryptocurrency - Now this should be simple, a currency based on cryptography, easy right?
Token - A crypto token is a digital asset that represents an asset or interest on a cryptocurrency's blockchain, these are mainly built on existing blockchain using smart contracts.
Smart Contracts - So you already know what a contract is, it's exactly the same except this is smart, it automatically executes depending on the terms and condition between buyer and seller.
Solana
Now that you have a basic understanding of some terms related to web3 and blockchain, let's understand Solana and why it's existence is so crucial? What purpose Solana is solving? Why do we need it? Why more and more people are leaning towards it?
Introduction
Simply a cryptocurrency and a blockchain platform that aims to improve upon Ethereum, now why improve? To increase scalability of blockchain technology while keeping the costs low, with the transaction speed of 710,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a standard network and up to 28.4 Million TPS on a 40 gigabit network.
Solana's native cryptocurrency is SOL, which is used to pay transaction fees and for staking. Anyone can run a validator node on Solana, and unlike most crypto projects you don't need a minimum stake amount.
Solana is also responsible holding decentralized and scalable applications, a fairly new but very promising it seems. doesn't it?
I won't go very technical as my aim is to explain Solana and Blockchain in such a manner that you could start on your own, weather you want to research or build on Solana. Let's move ahead now.
Circulation of SOL Tokens
Crypto heads might be wondering about circulation of SOL, well it's infinite, no cap !
I just mentioned decentralized applications, aka dAAPS, basically application using any smart contract or any crypto program to exist under DAO ( Decentralized Autonomous Organization - An org. with no central authority ).
"Just Build, Improve and Build"
But Why Solana ?
Don't you like fast?
Solana has a blocktime of 400miliseconds compared to Eth's blocktime of 10seconds compared with Bitcoin's blocktime of 10minutes.
and due to proof-of-history there's no waiting for time hence making it faster and cheaper, now what's proof-of-history you ask?
- Proof-Of-History - Solana introduces Proof of History (PoH), a novel concept revolutionizing blockchain. PoH differs significantly from traditional methods like Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. Essentially, it's a way to record time between transactions, ensuring fast and efficient processing
BUT WHYY!!????
I understand that this is a very basic prompt for everyone, in a world where we have different payment options with ease of paying anywhere we want to without hassle and limits, why get into something so complicated?
I'll make some points and tell me if you resonate with me.
- Decentralizations : No controlling authority, you can be the stakeholder and the validator. It can't be shutdown because no one is controlling it, neither it can be compromised, No fees in day to day transactions.
That's the "SOL" goal of it, get it? "SOL" like "sole", haha.
The concept is beautiful and we are at the beginning of this cycle, it's on you if you wanna see it grow or be part of it and help it grow even faster !
Important References
Here are some links if you want to deep down further and get into it.
Blockchain : https://www.ibm.com/topics/blockchain
Crypto : https://crypto.com/glossary
Conclusion
Well that's about it, I really hope that I helped you get above from zero understanding about Solana and blockchain, the more you dive in the more intresting it'll keep getting, and there's only one motto "Learn and Build".
Kudos !! See you in the next blog ;)