Everything You Need To Know About Solana
If you’re into crypto you’ve likely heard of the Sol-ar storm that’s raging right now. The Solana blockchain, and its SOL token are really flying this year. If you’re thinking it’s about time you knew more about this blockchain and its top 5 token, read on!
What is Solana?
Solana is a web-scale, open-source blockchain that supports developers and institutions around the world, helping to build decentralised applications (DApps) and marketplaces.
Solana’s protocol is fast, secure, and censorship-resistant and provides the flexibility of an open infrastructure required to build applications for mass adoption.
The Solana mainnet beta was launched in March 2020. It is one of the world’s first web-scale blockchains and fastest networks, thanks to its speed and claimed throughput of 50,000 TPS (transactions per second).
According to Solana.com, “Solana is the fastest blockchain in the world and the fastest growing ecosystem in crypto, with over 400 projects spanning DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and more.”
Neat!
What’s the SOL token?
As a token, SOL isn’t actually that remarkable. As with most smart contract platforms Solana’s native token is used to pay for all on-chain transactions and smart contracts. Investors can also use SOL to perform micropayments.
It has a maximum supply of 489 million coins and a circulating supply of 286 million tokens.
How is SOL performing?
This year? Hmm, what’s the word… umm, staggering. Yes, that’ll do.
SOL started 2021 with a price of $1.61 USD. As we hit mid-November, a single SOL will now cost you $227.14 USD. That’s an eye-watering rise of over 14,000%. The token now has a market cap of almost $69bn USD.
Cue impressive looking, crazy-upward-trending price chart.
Source: Coinmarketcap
Why is it so popular?
Solana is often referred to as the most scalable blockchain in the world, as it’s among the few blockchains that have actually achieved over 1,000 TPS.
According to Solana however, the blockchain is actually capable of reaching 50,000 TPS — making it by far the fastest-performing blockchain on the planet. Like, ever!
By way of comparison, we’ve put together this little table.
NOTE: It should be mentioned that Cardano is working on its Hydra layer which will allow for a monumental 2 million TPS!
At the present moment, Solana is 4x faster than Cardano, 3,800 times faster than Ethereum, and 10,000 times faster than Bitcoin.
The network already hosts several projects, with partners like USDC, Chainlink, Kin, BSN, Exodus, and Serum.
With the network’s high speed, low-cost transactions and (current) industry-leading throughput, it will be interesting to see what kind of projects Solana attracts in the future. More projects means more users and transactions, which will only push the price of SOL higher.
Have your say!
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This week in the markets week commencing 15/11/21
It’s not going to be the busiest week of the year, but here’s everything coming up.
Monday
● JPY — GDP Growth Annualised Prel (Q3)
Tuesday
● GBP — Employment Change (AUG); Unemployment Rate (SEP)
● EUR — GDP Growth Rate QoQ 2nd Est (Q3)
● USD — Retail Sales MoM (OCT)
Wednesday
● GBP — Core Inflation Rate YoY (OCT); Inflation Rate YoY (OCT)
● EUR — Core Inflation Rate YoY Final (OCT)
● CAD — Core Inflation Rate YoY (OCT); Inflation Rate YoY (OCT)
Thursday
No major events scheduled.
Friday
● JPY — Inflation Rate YoY (OCT)
● GBP — GfK Consumer Confidence (NOV)
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Speak soon!
The Contentworks team
