User:Meta02/Solana (blockchain platform)

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Solana is a public blockchain platform with smart contract functionality. Its native cryptocurrency is SOL. Solana claims to offer faster transaction times and lower costs than its main competitor, Ether

History
Solana was initially born from the white paper Anatoly Yakovenko published in November of 2017. This paper detailed a technique called Proof of History, a technique that would in theory allow blockchains to become 10,000 times faster.

In 2021, Bloomberg journalist Joanna Ossinger described Solana as "a potential long-term rival for Ethereum", citing superior transaction speeds and lower associated costs.

On 14 September 2021, the Solana blockchain went offline after a surge of transactions caused the network to fork, and different validators had different views on the state of the network. The network was brought back online the next day on 15 September 2021.

On 16 December 2021, former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump announced her plans to use Solana to launch a non-fungible token (NFT). The Solana Foundation issued a press release to clarify that her choice of the platform was not officially "part of any Solana-led initiative."

Design
Solana achieves consensus using a proof-of-stake mechanism, as well as a "proof-of-history" mechanism which Solana's whitepaper claims improves scalability without sacrificing decentralization and security.

Solana can handle 710,000 transactions per second, which is faster than the Ethereum blockchain, but still less than the 400,000 transactions seen during the spike. Oskar Solberg estimated the transaction fees to be $0.00025 per transaction, which is roughly 60,000 times lower than the fees of the transaction on the Ethereum blockchain.

Like various other blockchains, Solana can run smart contracts. The execution environment is based on eBPF, which allows the Rust, C, and C++ programming languages to be used.

On December 2nd, 2021, Solana had over $15B worth of value locked on its blockchain.

Smart Contracts and Solana:
According to IBM, the most simple definition of smart contracts is: “[a] program stored on a blockchain that runs when predetermined conditions are met”. This technology is used to automate processes and optimize the execution of agreements according to the conditions of all parties involved. With smart contracts, said parties can be certain about the outcome of the decisions, as the conditions are pre-determined and particular outcomes will only be executed depending on what type of conditions are met and what results they yield in the contract.

Smart contracts work with simple if, else, then, when… etc conditions which are written into code inside the blockchain. Computer systems will run and verify if such conditions have been met, and depending on the outcomes, the contract will execute the according results. Smart contracts can also be used to optimize workflows and ‘unlock’ certain processes and procedures (or even other contracts) if the appropriate conditions are satisfied. Having said that, smart contacts are also very powerful as they can have a variety of ‘paths’ and hence allow developers to create almost tailored made and custom experiences for each individual user. Depending on each user's input, needs, etc, the results and outcomes will be different and specifically targeted towards their conditions.

In today's fast paced, data driven world, smart contracts will only really be efficient if they are able to process information (inputs) and provide solutions (outputs) in a very fast manner. Organizations are using smart contacts to optimize processes and have the ability to provide specific outcomes (depending on the conditions met) to each specific user. As a result, the blockchain (and in this case Solana) comes very handy for this particular infrastructure. Considering the fact that blockchain is a decentralized system where many computers have the ability to authenticate and approve ‘transactions’, smart contracts can easily be scaled using such a technology. Solana has become one of the most powerful, efficient and fast blockchains in the market, having the ability to process an impressive amount of around 65,000 transactions per second (TPS) ; in comparison to Ethereum processing around 45 TPS. Such high speed allows developers to scale their smart contract infrastructure using Solana, as organizations will be able to process requests and provide solutions to many more customers in less time. As Akash Takyar, the CEO of LeewayHertz (a company which develops applications and platforms for enterprises) stated: “As a high-speed, scalable, and low-cost ecosystem, Solana facilitates the development of fast and scalable smart contracts & decentralized applications”.

Solana Smart Contracts, known lexicographically as Solana Programs, are typically implemented in either the C or Rust programming languages, and compiled into Solana BPF Bytecode for execution. In order to preserve high transaction speeds, Solana Programs are "read only", meaning that they do not actively affect the state of the entire Solana chain when executing–rather, they contain logic which can be processed using local CPU memory. This contrasts with typical EVM-enabled Smart Contracts which are hosted on the Ethereum and Avalanche chains.

On top of the high speeds and infrastructure support, Solana (as many other blockchains), is extremely safe and reliable. All transactions executed are traceable and immutable, meaning that smart contracts can’t be altered or ‘hacked’ by anyone and as a result, developers and organizations can be completely sure that their users will get safe and accurate outcomes all the time. Blockchain and specially Solana, is a technology which can definitely continue to leverage the potential of smart contracts and revolutionized many industries in an extremely scalable, fast and secure manner.