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Solana

Solana

Solana is a decentralized blockchain built to enable scalable, user-friendly apps for the world.

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Contents
Overview

Solana is an open-source project implementing a permissionless blockchain. The Solana Foundation is based in Geneva, Switzerland and maintains the open-source project. The company's decentralized blockchain platform offers concurrent GPU-parallelization and uses a Proof of History (PoH) consensus mechanism for higher speed than competitor blockchains, with low latency and reduced cost of transactions, all at layer-1 and without sharding. According to Solana, the blockchain is capable of 710,000 transactions per second on a 1-gigabit network without data partitioning.

Solana was founded in 2017 and was officially launched in March 2020 by the Solana Foundation. The protocol is designed to facilitate decentralized applications (dApp) creation, as well as improve the scalability through the Proof of History consensus. Similar to Ethereum, Solana is a cryptocurrency and a flexible platform for running dApps. The speed of the network is intended to reduce congestion on the network and reduce network fees, in order to entice new developers and help Solana scale. Solana uses a native cryptocurrency, SOL, which is used to pay transaction fees and for staking for governance.

Proof of History concept

Cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko published a whitepaper in 2017 to describe the Proof of History (PoH) concept that would be adopted by the Solana blockchain. This consensus mechanism uses order and passage of time between events to encode trustless passage of time into a ledger. This is intended to reduce the slowdowns in other networks that can be caused by the network using a participant or network nodes local clock. The lack of a trusted source of time, or a standardized clock, caused some transactions to be accepted or rejected erroneously and caused network slowdowns, which PoH is intended to solve while maintaining a trustless basis.

Network architecture

The Solana architecture offers features common to other networks, such as smart contracting, transaction settlement, and token issuance. The Solana network works to offer better settlement speeds and higher capacity for transactions in comparison to other blockchain networks. It works to achieve this through eight core components of the network, including:

  • Proof of History—creates a common schedule across all participants
  • Gulf Stream—defines when and how transactions are exchanged
  • Sealevel—a processing engine to assign the order and execution of transactions
  • Turbine—defines how node validate transactions and send and receive blocks
  • Cloudbreak—a memory mechanism to keep track of participant balances
  • Pipeline—verifies each component of a transaction
  • Archivers—a network of nodes where data is off-loaded from validators and stored in perpetuity

SOL

The governance token of the Solana blockchain, SOL, is the blockchain's native cryptocurrency. This utility and governance token is used to pay the transaction fees of the network and can be staked for governance of the blockchain network.

History

The Solana company notes its founding starts with Anatoly Yakovenko's 2017 whitepaper on the Proof of History. This was based on his experience designing distributed systems as Qualcomm, Mesosphere, and Dropbox, where he knew a reliable clock makes network synchronization simpler. This was to develop a blockchain that was faster than Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have struggled to scale beyond fifteen transactions per second globally, while centralized systems, such as Visa, can process 65,000 transactions per second. With the change, Solana suggests the company's blockchain is capable of processing 710,000 transactions per second on a 1-gigabit ethernet network.

Solana cofounder Greg Fitzgerald worked with Anatoly Yakovenko on the initial implementation of Proof of History, encouraging Yakovenko to change the programming language of the project to the Rust programming language, which Fitzgerald has maintained guarantees safety for improved software productivity. The resulting project was published to GitHub under the name Silk in 2018. This early release demonstrated 10,000 signed transactions that were verified and processed in over half a second. Yakovenko recruited Fitzgerald along with others to cofound a company based on this consensus mechanism.

Around this time, the company was founded with the name Loom, until an Ethereum-based project Loom Network was also developed. The team changed its name to Solana, in a nod to a small beach in California where cofounders Yakovenko, Fitzgerald, and Stephen Akridge lived while they worked together at Qualcomm.

On the 14th of September 2021, Solana crashed following an upsurge of transactions that caused the blockchain to fork. Some of the services were disrupted after the platform's transaction load reached 400,000 transactions per second. On the 15th of September 2021, Solana was brought back online.

On the 16th of September 2021, Melania Trump, past First Lady of the United States, announced plans to release a non-fungible token at the price of 1 SOL each on the Solana blockchain. A representative of the Solana Foundation said in response:

"To avoid any confusion, her choice to use the Solana blockchain was completely organic and this project is not part of any Solana-led initiative."

Timeline

February 24, 2022
Solana Wallets, Slope Finance raises $8M.

Slope Finance, the start-up behind a digital wallet for the Solana blockchain, has closed a Series A funding round co-led by Solana Ventures and Jump Crypto.

February 23, 2022
Edensol introduces play-to-earn guilds in Solana's GameFi Space.
February 9, 2021
Solana announces DeFi hackathon offering $200k in seed funding.

Funding Rounds

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Products

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Acquisitions

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SBIR/STTR Awards

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Patents

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Further Resources

Title
Author
Link
Type
Date

Announcing the Solana Foundation x Serum DeFi Hackathon

Solana

https://medium.com/solana-labs/announcing-the-solana-foundation-x-serum-defi-hackathon-7e34290f8262?source=user_profile---------0-------------------------------

Web

February 2, 2021

Breakpoint 2021: Special Presentation by Alexis Ohanian and Raj Gokal

https://youtu.be/y0Uq_RHExhc

Web

November 17, 2021

Dogecoin for Tipping Tweeters? FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Outlines Vision for Remaking Twitter on Solana - The Daily Hodl

https://dailyhodl.com/2022/04/15/dogecoin-for-tipping-tweeters-ftx-founder-sam-bankman-fried-outlines-vision-for-remaking-twitter-on-solana/

Web

April 15, 2022

Ethereum OR Solana? Who Will Get Ahead? [ Main Differences Explained ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z-PZ-lZl6Y

Web

January 17, 2022

History | Solana Docs

https://docs.solana.com/history

Web

...

References

...
solana.com
Is a
Organization
Organization
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency
Company
Company

Company attributes

Industry
Blockchain
Blockchain
Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)
Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)
Decentralized Finance
Decentralized Finance
Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange
Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange
ERC-20 Token
ERC-20 Token
Non-fungible token (NFT)
Non-fungible token (NFT)
Developer Ecosystem
Developer Ecosystem
Market research
Market research
...
Location
Paris
Paris
United States
United States
Switzerland
Switzerland
Geneva
Geneva
San Francisco
San Francisco
B2X
B2B
B2B
CEO
Anatoly Yakovenko
Anatoly Yakovenko
Founder
Anatoly Yakovenko
Anatoly Yakovenko
Raj Gokal
Raj Gokal
Alan Yu
Alan Yu
Greg Fitzgerald
Greg Fitzgerald
Stephen Akridge
Stephen Akridge
Pitchbook URL
pitchbook.com/profiles...227820-52
Legal Name
Solana Labs, Inc.
Subsidiary
Solana Mobile
Solana Mobile
Notifi
Notifi
Solanart
Solanart
Legal classification
Corporation
Corporation
Spinout
Laine Stake
Laine Stake
Number of Employees (Ranges)
51 – 200
Number of Employees
233
Full Address
1 rue du Mail, Paris, Ile-de-France 75002, FR
645 Howard Street San Francisco, CA 94105 United States
CIK Number
1,735,643
Investors
Collab+Currency
Collab+Currency
ParaFi Capital
ParaFi Capital
Big Brain Holdings
Big Brain Holdings
Floem Capital
Floem Capital
defigen
defigen
Insignius Capital
Insignius Capital
IPC Ionplus Capital
IPC Ionplus Capital
Crypto Dorm Fund
Crypto Dorm Fund
...
Founded Date
2017
Email Address
hello@solana.com
Phone Number
+14025946004
+14056273936
Total Funding Amount (USD)
356,540,000
Latest Funding Round Date
June 7, 2021
Competitors
Velas
Velas
Dogecoin
Dogecoin
Kusama (KSM)
Kusama (KSM)
Binance Smart Chain
Binance Smart Chain
BitGreen
BitGreen
TRON (cryptocurrency)
TRON (cryptocurrency)
Sui
Sui
Mysten Labs
Mysten Labs
...
Business Model
Transaction processing / marketplace
Stock Symbol
SOL
Exchange
Zebpay
Zebpay
SafeTrade
SafeTrade
NovaDAX
NovaDAX
VALR
VALR
Rekeningku.com
Rekeningku.com
MAX Exchange
MAX Exchange
Giottus
Giottus
Coinone
Coinone
...
CTO
Greg Fitzgerald
Greg Fitzgerald
CFO
‌
Nivan Bhuta
Key People
Greg FitzGerald
Greg FitzGerald
Anatoly Yakovenko
Anatoly Yakovenko
Alan Yu
Alan Yu
Raj Gokal
Raj Gokal
Also Known As
Solana Foundation
Solana Labs
Latest Funding Type
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
COO
Raj Gokal
Raj Gokal
API Documentation URL
docs.solana.com/develop...nrpc-api

Cryptocurrency attributes

Consensus Mechanism
Proof-of-stake
Proof-of-stake
Proof of History
Proof of History
Ticker Symbol
SOL
Genesis Block Date
January 3, 2018
Maximum Supply
511,616,946
Block Explorer URL
explorer.s0lana.com
explorer.solana.com
solana.fm
solscan.io
solanabeach.io
solana.com/zh

Other attributes

Blog
solana.com/news
Circulating Supply
359,331,391.25
CoinGecko ID
solana
Community Forum
docs.solana.com
reddit.com/r/solana/
twitter.com/solana
discord.com/invite/pquxPsq
link.medium.com/jfcVNAnjIub
github.com/solana-labs
youtube.com/SolanaFndn
t.me/solana
Company Operating Status
Active
Strategic Partnerships
JPool
JPool
Tulip Protocol
Tulip Protocol
Star Atlas DAO
Star Atlas DAO
Yom
Yom
Media Network
Media Network
Blockearth
Blockearth
Boundless Nexus
Boundless Nexus
Tag Ventures
Tag Ventures
...
Contact Page URL
forums.solana.com
Country
United States
United States
Cryptocurrency Symbol
SOL
First Release
April 2019
ICO Amount Raised
5,375,000
ICO Date
2020
Latest Funding Round Amount (USD)
314,150,000
Launch Date
March 2020
License
Apache 2.0
Market Capitalization
14,000,000,000
Medium URL
medium.com/solana-labs
Partner Organizations
Raydium
Raydium
OpenSea
OpenSea
CoinMarketCap
CoinMarketCap
Magic Eden
Magic Eden
World Knowledge Token
World Knowledge Token
Honeyland
Honeyland
Drift Protocol
Drift Protocol
Dappio
Dappio
...
Public/Private
Private
Source Code
github.com/solana-labs/solana
Token Standard
SOL
Total Supply
511,616,946
Wallet
metamask.io
solflare.com
mathwallet.org/en-us/
phantom.app
wallet.coin98.com
sollet.io
trezor.io
chrome.google.com/websto...kkoljpa
...
Wikidata ID
Q108695872

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