Solana Blockchain - Crypto Academy / S4W4 - Homework post for pelon53
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1.- Explain in detail the PoH of Solana.
2.- Explain at least 2 cases of use of Solana.
3.- Detail and explain the SOLA token.
4.- When did Solana Blockchain see its operations interrupted? Why? Explain.
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.
Explain in detail the PoH of Solana.
Founded in 2017, Solana is a cryptocurrency blockchain that has a decentralized framework with integrated consensus mechanisms. It is an open-source project and one of the fastest blockchains in the cryptocurrency space. The Solana blockchain is highly scalable and can support a variety of projects such as decentralized applications, NFTs, and many others. Due to its blazing speed, Solana is able to conduct tens of thousands of transactions each second, while providing high data security and integrity. On technical grounds, its speed is around 50000 transactions each second.
Furthermore, Solana blockchain is well regarded for its minimal transaction fees. The average fee for a single transaction on the blockchain is $0.00025, according to the official website. This trait in addition to its speed confers to the blockchain a highly scalable form that has attracted various developers to set up their projects on the blockchain. The network is also sustainable and has a great future outlook because it eliminates the need for the Proof-of-work mechanism, which is heavily frowned on by many governments.
Solana rather combines the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism with a distinct mechanism called Proof-of-History. These frameworks do not require high-power-consuming computer equipment to perform validating and other operations on the network. As a result, it is considered an environmentally friendly project since it does not generate serious carbon footprints like other blockchains such as Ethereum. Solana blockchain is also notoriously considered as Ethereum blockchain's biggest rival.
One particular factor that plays a crucial role in the blazing speed of Solana is its Proof-of-History mechanism. This mechanism is fundamentally a cryptographic means of confirming the history or time of operations on the blockchain. Most traditional blockchains struggle to support an immense number of transactions every second because such blockchain platforms have time synchronization challenges. These kinds of blockchains do not have clocks to verify the timestamps of transactions across networks around the globe; hence, it takes longer for the networks to synchronize and this limits such blockchain in supporting a huge number of transactions per second.
The POH is not considered a consensus mechanism. It works by generating a record that is a testament to the particular period of time in which an operation took place. With POH, the output of the hash operation cannot be deciphered until it is generated, even when the input is revealed. With such a cryptographic function, the recent output data is also utilized as the new input. The amount of times the hash function is called as well as the output data for every single call is recorded. These sequences are done unilaterally and can be verified publicly.
Also, the transaction blocks are further downsized into entries, which are conveyed to the nodes that will be performing the validation. This event takes place before the actual verification of the block. Hence, the common synchronization delay problem that most blockchain experience is eliminated on the Solana blockchain. This paves way for tens of thousand transactions to happen on its network each second.
Explain at least 2 cases of use of Solana.
Due to Solana’s highly scalable and speedy blockchain, it has become home to a variety of applications. Some of these applications are of Decentralized Finance nature, Maps, Games, NFTs, Oracles, and many others. As of September 29, there were a total of 368 projects that had integrated the Solana blockchain into their operations. Few instances of such projects utilizing the Solana blockchain is as below:
Orca
As a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, Orca employs the Solana blockchain for its service. The main intention of the Orca project is to make available a simplistic user-interfaced exchange platform that provides a great user experience. It, additionally, has integrated some elements such as the token balance feature, which is basically an interface that displays the balance of the connected wallet of the user directly on the platform.
Tokens exchange on Orca experience very low transaction fees. Transactions are also fast because the underlying framework of the platform is the Solana blockchain, which is able to accommodate fifty thousand transactions per second. Participants who add to the Orca platform’s liquidity enjoy a portion of the trading fees on the platform. Users can also earn some collectibles on the Orca platform.
Furthermore, this decentralized exchange platform has an exceptional tool that is alluded to as the Fair Price Indicator. These tools enable users to assess whether the current market rates on the Orca exchange platform are congruent with the rates on other markets. Hence this feature aids participants in making trades at good price points.
The Orca decentralized exchange also features its token that has a governance purpose and was issued in August 2021. According to the Orca website, the initial number of the ORCA token supplied was 5.25 Million. 4 Million of these tokens were airdropped to the liquidity providers as well as traders on the exchange. The remaining tokens were then distributed to various levels of traders on the exchange and also the advisory team of the project.
According to CoinMarketCap, the ORCA token was trading at $16.29 and was ranked 2761, at the time of visit. With a maximum supply of 100 Million tokens, ORCA’s 24 hours trading volume was close to 11 Million Dollars, and its fully diluted market capitalization was a little above 1.6 Billion Dollars.
Raydium
As a decentralized finance application built on the Solana network, Raydium provides market marker services that are automated and integrates the Serum DEX order book in its operation. The Raydium platform enjoys lightning speed and minimal fees since the base framework is the Solana blockchain. On Raydium, the users can access the limit order book of the Serum decentralized exchange including its liquidity as well as the order flow.
On Raydium, users can perform trades and cryptocurrency swaps with very small fees at a speedy pace. Before the swaps take place, Raydium first assesses the better liquidity pool for the transaction and executes the operation accordingly. Hence, traders get the optimum price point for the transaction. Raydium also has a customizable trading interface that grants users the power to make chart configurations of their choice. Additionally, participants who add up to the liquidity on the platform are rewarded with tokens by means of the Raydium Farms section.
One amazing feature about Raydium is that it also has a launchpad called the AcceleRaytor. This launchpad is of high essence to new projects. It provides a platform for developers to raise funds and Initial Dex Offering for the project. This feature is instrumental in helping the project establish a firm foundation for growth.
The Raydium ecosystem has its own native token called the RAY. It is usually denoted as $RAY. These tokens can be staked by holders to earn even more RAY tokens. The maximum supply of the tokens was limited to 555 Million.
According to CoinMarketCap, the RAY token was trading at $9.73 and was ranked 111, at the time of visit. Its Market Capitalization is close to 700 Million Dollars, and it has a fully diluted Market Cap of 5.4 Billion Dollars. Its 24-hours trading volume is around 110 Million Dollars. Out of its 555 Million token supply limit, 71.2 Million tokens were in circulation.
Detail and explain the SOLA token
The Sola Decentralized exchange ecosystem, which employs the Solana blockchain for its functioning, has its own token called the $SOLA Token. It is primarily a governance token and was launched in August 2021. The initial number of Sola tokens that was supplied was about 27.1 Million. The exact number of tokens happens to be the maximum limit that was determined for the token.
During the opening SOlA token distribution, about six million tokens were disbursed among the entities that add to the liquidity on the decentralized exchange platform. Ten million of the tokens were also distributed among the investors of the project. The remaining tokens were spread among other groups like the advisory team of the project, the marketing team, and many others.
The tokens also undergo burning at certain times, and the purpose of the team is to continue with the burning of the tokens, which it acquires through purchase on the markets, till the maximum supply of the tokens is about twenty-one million. The burning of the token will reduce the number of tokens in circulation, and this will have a positive influence on the prices of the tokens, as demands may soar significantly.
According to CoinGecko, the $SOLA token was trading at $0.059 and was ranked 1826, at the time of visit. Its Market Capitalization and fully diluted Market Capitalization was 1.6 Million Dollars. Its 24-hours trading volume is around 72 thousand dollars. The total supply pool of 27 Million $SOLA tokens, which happens to be its maximum supply of tokens were fully in circulation.
When did Solana Blockchain see its operations interrupted? Why? Explain
On September 14, 2021, there was an outage on the Solana Blockchain that lasted for hours. The downtime was attributed to an immense load of transactions on the blockchain. Thus, about four hundred thousand transactions per second were the climax of this rate at which the blockchain was being loaded with operations.
The blockchain’s inability to handle this flood of transactions caused the network to disregard its transaction priority framework, and this event lead to forking. The huge TPS also consumed the memory of the network, which eventually caused it to experience downtime for about sixteen hours.
Prior to that period, Solana was experiencing massive price growth on the market. It had reached new highs, and then the crash sent the price plummeting. The outage was resolved on 15 September 2021 after the developers restarted the whole network. The community of validators was the chosen group that carried out the rebooting of the network along with a new release or upgrade.
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.
For this section, I used the Solana Explorer website to explore the blocks.
At the time of visit, the recent block was 99181069
The Blockhash is 8F6UmuRi8mBML9m3J47aERhRKrMAQP9mZ8iUdqdzVGSL
The Timestamp of the block is Oct 1, 2021 at 02:51:53 GMT
The Parent Slot is 99181068
Parent Blockhash is ARRLrnx19DY7jpXu6VXEtkPixT3ixyFYrVmtA113ncBZ
Child Slot is 99181070
Processed Transactions are 1076
Successful Transaction is 971
For the genesis block of the Solana blockchain, the details were as follows:
The Blockhash is AcknnkY4ok5BZuk69WijDETKVRUPZoMtniZHMe4ZaK1e
The Parent Slot is 0
Parent Blockhash is 4sGjMW1sUnHzSxGspuhpqLDx6wiyjNtZAMdL4VZHirAn
Child Slot is 2
Processed Transactions are 4
Successful Transaction is 0
The Timestamp according to the vote on the Genesis block indicates March 16, 2020, at 14:30:51 Greenwich Mean Time
Now to evaluate the Blocks per second rate on the Solana blockchain, the formula below will be used:
Blocks per Second Rate =
( Recent Block Number / Total Number of Seconds )
Recent Block Number = 99181069
To calculate the total number of seconds between March 16, 2020 - 14:30:51 GMT and Oct 1, 2021 - 02:51:53 GMT, I used the Time Zone Duration Calculator Website.
I entered the respective dates and times accordingly and click on the Calculate Duration button.
The result indicated that there were 48,687,662 seconds in between those dates and times.
Blocks per Second = ( 99181069 / 48687662 )
Blocks per Second = 2.037
This translates to approximately 2 Blocks each second.
This confirms the theory that 1 Block is generated in 0.5 seconds.
Conclusion
The Solana blockchain is a highly secure and scalable network that is able to perform 50000 transactions every second. This makes the blockchain appealing to projects of various types including Decentralized Finance applications, NFT, Games, Music applications, and many others. It also has its native SOL token, which has been making tremendous growth this year. Despite the network outage incidence in September, the network has recovered and conducted its operations in a satisfactory manner.
I frequently heard about Solana, but I lacked the discipline to dive into it. So this lecture by Professor @Pelon53 has done great good to me because it brought such essential knowledge to my doorstep. I now know what Solana is and how it functions. Thank you, professor.
Gracias por participar en Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4, Semana 4:
Muy buen trabajo, felicitaciones.
Lo que creo puedes mejorar un poco más es la presentación.
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