Solana Blockchain - Crypto Academy / S4W4 - Homework post for pelon53
Hi Professor @pelon53, I am @ononiwujoel one of your students in Crypto Academy and a member of the steemit platform and this is my homework submission post from your lecture Solana Blockchain
Introduction
The scalability issues, poor speed of block creation, high transaction fees, congestion issues and mining difficulties to mention but a few setbacks found in the first top-rated cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum has led to creation of several third generation blockchains and among these is a very speedy new blockchain called Solana (SOL).
Solana is the fastest blockchain in existence currently, new blocks are created in this blockchain in a split second (0.5seconds) and transactions are also super-fast. Solana also uses a different kind of hybrid consensus protocol that combines Proof-of-Stake(PoS) and Proof-of-History(PoH), so this makes it very decentralized and censorship resistant, users can participate in the governance of the blockchain by owning stakes (SOL) on the platform and also the timestamps and history of all transaction activities on the blockchain is also used by the nodes to come to consensus.
Solana was made in order to solve the problems of scalability, congestion and speed on blockchains in order to make it support high speed dApps and other real life uses. Solana also interact with smart contracts just like Ethereum so it can be used for DeFi, blockchain and NFT games and other dApps.
This project was first initialized by an American computer scientist called Anatoly Yakovenko, he worked as a Senior staff engineer manager in Qualcom and began the Solana project in 2017 with another Software engineer called Greg Fitzgerald and their first project was called the Solana Lab. After its creation there was a testnet and the project went through a number of test before the cryptocurrency was officially launched in 2020.
1.- Explain in detail the PoH of Solana.
I will start by first describing the term PoH.
What is PoH?
PoH which is an abbreviation for Proof-of-History is a third generation consensus algorithm in which the cryptography can confirm the timeframe between occurrences or transaction in the blockchain. Hence instead of using only the timestamps as usual, they are attached to occurrences in the blockchain and at such the timestamps can be verified if they're true or not.
PoH of Solana
As a matter of fact, Solana is the first ever blockchain to initiate the Proof of history consensus protocol. Infact this consensus protocol (PoH) was developed by the Solana Project Team so it's actually part of the Solana project.
The PoH in Solana operates in an impressive way. Solana is a decentralized blockchain so the governance comprises of nodes, validators, voting and coin holders, so in every block creation and transactions on the blockchain, timestamps are added to the blocks which are connected to events in the blockchain, Solana is also a very scalable and fast blockchain such that blocks are created in a split seconds so this process of adding timestamps must also be very fast and then the timestamps are created according to the event that happen before and after the timestamps are created. The different nodes in Solana then reach consensus to agree on the blocks and their timestamps, and the validators also do their job of validating the blocks and transactions.
Due to the fact that there are several nodes and there could be heavy activities on the nodes there is also the Turbine which help in distributing the information on these blocks and other transactions to the nodes and the nodes share to other nodes starting with the ones closest to them so that all nodes will have some information on the blocks and transactions details with which blocks can be recreated.
So in summary PoH in Solana allows the different nodes to come to an agreement about the timestamps and their related history or event to ensure to super-fast and efficient network.
We must also know that Solana doesn't just operate based on PoH but runs a mixture of PoH and Proof of Stake consensus protocol, so it can be called a hybrid blockchain. While the PoH enables quick and reliable confirmation of informations, block creation and transactions on the network, the PoS enables it to remain decentralized where users with vests can participate in the governance of the network.
2.- Explain at least 2 cases of use of Solana.
I will be explaining the use of Solana through two very successful and top-rated projects running on the Solana Blockchain which are Raydium and Orca respectively.
Raydium (RAY)
Raydium is one of the biggest and most popular projects running on the Solana network currently. It is an on-chain order book AMM(Automated Market Maker) and liquidity provider ecosystem that used in the Serum decentralized exchange which is also running on the Solana Blockchain.
Raydium has an edge over other automated market makers because it is an on-chain liquidity provider to the Serum platform and as such has full access to the platform order books which includes the order flow and other existing liquidity on Serum.
Raydium is largely focused on DeFi and has a number of projects already running under it even though it is quite new with several other projects still underway. And due to the fact that it runs on the Solana Blockchain it is also very fast and secure thereby fulfilling the necessary conditions for a third generation DeFi focused project.
Apart from trading and earning through Raydium LPs this project also have other potentials which includes An exchange market just like pancakeswap except this is way faster, Yield farming where holders of Ray token can engage in farming to earn Yields and AcceleRaytor which is a launch pad for new projects running on the Solana Blockchain.
Raydium also has native token called RAY which is doing very well on the crypto market already. RAY ranks #110 on coinmarketcap.io and is worth $9.31 with market capitalization of $652,981,263, fully diluted market capitalization of $5,157,437,859, 24hr volume of $114,561,848 and circulating supply of 70,133,517.84.
This token is already listed on several top rated exchanges including Binance.
Orca
Orca is also an Automated Market Maker and decentralized exchange platform that is built on the Solana network. Orca is also said to be one of the oldest projects on Solana and the most user-friendly decentralized exchange (DEX).
Users of the platform can perform transactions like swapping coins, Yield farming, providing liquidity and staking.
Another important feature of the orca DEX is the plan of creating a cross-chain link between Solana and Ethereum called Wormhole and when this is done then users will be able to also interact with smart contracts on Ethereum network.
Orca also has its native coin called Orca. It ranks #2727 on coinmarketcap.io, priced at $14.91, has a fully diluted market capitalization of $1,491,343,258 and 24hr trade volume of $19,119,279 at the time I made this assignment.
3.- Detail and explain the SOLA token.
The SOLA token is the native coin of SOLA DEX platform which is an Automated Market Maker and decentralized exchange also built on the Solana blockchain.
This platform is relatively new and still in its first quarter after being launched just this year. It still has few features like an exchange market (DEX), high transaction speed and high liquidity launches.
Other features still underway to be developed in the last quarter of this year and also next year includes Token swapping, Lottery platform, Staking, Yield farming, IDO launchpad, NFT creation platform etc.
SOLA token is the native coin of this SOLA DEX platform and powers all the activities in the platform as well as allows holders to participate in the governance of the platform.
SOLA token ranks #1776 on coingecko.io, priced at $0.061906 with a market capitalization of $1,680,937, 24hr trade volume of $34,014, fully diluted valuation of $1,680,937, circulating supply of 27,153,077 and a total supply of 27,153,077 at the time I made this assignment.
4.- When did Solana Blockchain see its operations interrupted? Why? Explain.
Solana Blockchain operations was interrupted and completed shutdown on September 14 which is two weeks ago on a Tuesday.
This temporary shutdown of the Solana network was caused by bots which were being used by people on the blockchain to execute transactions and on that day the number of transactions increased to around 400,000 per second which is beyond the capacity of the blockchain and this lead to the severs getting choked with so much transactions and then it shutdown affecting all activities on the blockchain including smart contracts, ricardian contracts and several projects on the blockchain.
The main founder and creator of the Solana blockchain also took to twitter to explain why there was an interruption in the network and the situation on ground. He pointed out that bots during a Raydium IDO are responsible for the overwhelming increased transactions on the blockchain that has caused a shutdown and forking in the blockchain.
There was an IDO and a new protocol was to be issued to participants called Grape protocol(GRAPE) so many users took to using bots to do their transactions which ended in the entire blockchain getting overwhelmed by transactions.
The validators on Solana had to work together and after some time the blockchain was restarted and running smoothly again.
5.- Check the last block generated in Solana and make an approximate calculation of How many blocks per second have been generated in Solana, taking into account from the initial block to the current one? Justify your answer and show screenshots.
I'll using a step by step approach to solve this question.
- I start by visiting the Solana explorer at Solanabeach.io
- Scroll down to the listing of recent blocks. This seems to be changing every second due to fact that blocks are created on solona in split seconds. So I click on the last block before it changes. The last block is 98852044
According to the Solana explorer solscan.io there is no timestamp on the Solana genesis block
So we have to use to figure on the recent block to calculate the number of blocks per second on Solana. And according to the Solana whitepaper, blocks are created within 0.5seconds.
So multiply 0.5 x 98852044 and we'll have 49,426,022 seconds. Now convert to years and we'll have 1.567288876205 years
This is approximately 18 months, so if you minus 18 months from March 2020 which is the launch date of Solana we will notice that we just confirmed that blocks are being created on this blockchain every 0.5seconds like stated in the Solana whitepaper.
Conclusion
Solana has been a very successful project so far, judging from the launch date and the number of engaged users it has been able to attract and also the trading volumes we can see that this project has grown rapidly and gained huge popularity within a short period of time.
Some of the features that has made solona so exceptional are it's hybrid style of consensus protocol which combines PoS and PoH, it impressive speed which makes it the fastest blockchain till date and also it is very scalable.
As if this is not enough, Solana also interact with smart contracts and as such can be used for developing dApps and different DeFi projects. Solana is full of potentials and clearly still soaring daily.
It was a great lecture and I learnt a lot
Cc: Professor @pelon53