{"id":9081,"date":"2022-03-07T04:01:41","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T04:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/crypto\/what-is-solana-and-how-does-it-work\/"},"modified":"2022-03-07T04:01:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T04:01:43","slug":"what-is-solana-and-how-does-it-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/crypto\/what-is-solana-and-how-does-it-work\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Solana, and how does it work?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Solana is a highly functional open source project that implements a new, permissionless and high-speed layer-1 blockchain. <\/p>\n
Created in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former executive at Qualcomm, Solana aims to scale throughput beyond what is typically achieved by popular blockchains while keeping costs low. Solana implements an innovative hybrid consensus model that combines a unique proof-of-history (PoH) algorithm with the lightning-fast synchronization engine, which is a version of proof-of-stake (PoS). Because of this, the Solana network can theoretically process over 710,000 transactions per second (TPS) without any scaling solutions needed. <\/p>\n
Solana\u2019s third-generation blockchain architecture is designed to facilitate smart contracts and decentralized application (DApp) creation. The project supports an array of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms as well as nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces.<\/p>\n
Solana blockchain was rolled out during the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) boom. The project\u2019s internal testnet was released in 2018, followed by multiple testnet phases leading to the eventual official launch of the main network in 2020.<\/p>\n
Solana\u2019s ambitious design aims to solve the blockchain trilemma, a concept proposed by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, in its unique way. This trilemma describes a set of three major challenges that developers face when building blockchains: decentralization, security and scalability. <\/p>\n
It is widely believed that blockchains are built in such a way that forces developers to sacrifice one of the aspects in favor of the other two, as they can only provide two of the three benefits at any given time.<\/p>\n
The Solana blockchain platform has proposed a hybrid consensus mechanism that compromises on decentralization to maximize speed. The innovative combination of PoS and PoH makes Solana a unique project in the blockchain industry.<\/p>\n
Generally, blockchains have greater scalability, depending on the number of transactions per second they can support, the more and better they scale. In decentralized blockchains, however, time discrepancies and higher throughput slow them down, meaning that more nodes verifying transactions and timestamps take more time.<\/p>\n
In a nutshell, Solana\u2019s design solves this problem by having one leader node chosen based on the PoS mechanism that sequences messages between nodes. Thus, the Solana network benefits, reducing workload that results in increased throughput even without a centralized and exact time source. <\/p>\n
Also, Solana creates a chain of transactions by hashing the output of one transaction and using it as the input of the next transaction. This history of transactions gives a name to Solana\u2019s main consensus mechanism: PoH, a concept that allows for greater scalability of the protocol which, in turn, boosts usability.<\/p>\n
The core component of the Solana protocol is proof-of-history, a sequence of computations that provides a digital record that confirms that an event has occurred on the network at any point in time. It can be presented as a cryptographic clock that gives a timestamp to every transaction on the network, along with a data structure that can be a simple addition of it.<\/p>\n
PoH relies on PoS using the Tower Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) algorithm, an optimized version of the practical Byzantine fault tolerance (pBFT) protocol. Solana uses it to reach a consensus. The Tower BFT keeps the network secure and running and acts as an additional tool to validate transactions. <\/p>\n
Moreover, PoH can be considered as a high-frequency Verifiable Delay Function (VDF), a triple function (setup, evaluation, verification) to produce unique and reliable output. VDF maintains order in the network by proving that block producers have waited enough time for the network to move forward.<\/p>\n
Solana uses a 256-bit secure hash algorithm (SHA-256), a set of proprietary cryptographic functions that output a 256-bit value. The network periodically samples the number and SHA-256 hashes, providing real-time data according to the set of hashes included on central processing units.<\/p>\n
Solana validators can use this sequence of hashes to record a specific piece of data that was created prior to the generation of a specific hash index. The timestamp for transactions is created after this particular piece of data is inserted. To achieve claimed huge numbers of TPS and block creation time, all nodes on the network must have cryptographic clocks to keep track of events rather than waiting for other validators to verify transactions.<\/p>\n