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Significant price surges are amusing. Everyone wants to hop on and have a ride to the moon: some people are driven by FOMO, some HODL for the blind faith, the others believe in DYOR. In the “Rolling Stocks'' series, we overview the hottest outbreaks and find out the reasons for such successes.
This time we’ll dive into Solana (SOL) and explore its basics, key features, and recent updates!
What Is Solana?
Solana is a blockchain protocol for launching and developing decentralized applications for DeFi, Web3, and blockchain games, that require high processing speed and support over a billion users.
Instead of sharding, Solana uses a new Proof-of-History and Proof-of-Stake algorithm to support horizontal scaling.
The People Behind Solana
The founders of Solana are ex-Qualcomm employee Anatoly Yakovenko, former BREW developer Greg Fitzgerald and Ph.D. in particle physics Eric Williams. In February 2018, Yakovenko and Fitzgerald published the official white paper of the project and launched the first internal testnet.
Initially, the founders of the project named it Loom, but later rebranded it Solana to avoid confusion with the Layer-2 solution Loom Network. The project is named after Solana Beach – a town thirty minutes drive from San Diego, where Anatoly Yakovenko lives.
The mainnet beta launched in March 2020. In June 2020, the project created the Solana Foundation, an organization dedicated to the development of the Solana ecosystem and the adoption of decentralized technologies. Solana Labs has transferred 167 million SOL tokens and all intellectual property rights to the Solana Foundation.
What Role Does the SOL Token Play In the Solana Ecosystem?
SOL is the native utility token of the Solana blockchain. SOL uses SPL, a token standard on the Solana blockchain, similar to the ERC-20 standard on the Ethereum blockchain.
The unit of the SOL token is called Lamport, after the American computer scientist Leslie Lamport, whose research laid the foundations of the theory of distributed systems. One lampport is equal to 0.0000000000582 SOL.
There are three scenarios for using SOL:
- Staking;
- Transaction fees;
- Control;
- SOL token burning is involved in its deflationary model.
You can store SOL tokens in sollet.io developed by Serum Academy, in Trust Wallet for mobile devices, and in other wallets that support the SPL standard. Some wallets, like SolFlare, support token staking.
How Is Solana Developing?
In August 2020, the Serum decentralized exchange was launched on the Solana blockchain. The serum is using Optimistic Rollup, a second-tier solution for Ethereum. With its help, cross-chain swaps and tokenization will be introduced.
In October 2020, the Solana project introduced the Wormhole cross-chain solution connecting Ethereum and Solana tokens.
Where Can You Buy Solana Crypto?
Within +/- 1% of the average cost, it is possible to buy Solana crypto for other cryptocurrencies on the exchanges StealthEX, ZBG, ZB.COM, Bithumb Global, CoinEx, Pionex, CRYPTO.COM Exchange, HOTBIT KOREA, FTX US, LocalTrade, LOEx, Wootrade, Hoo, Huobi Global, Serum DEX, CoinDCX, AscendEX (Bitmax), COINBASE Exchange, FTX, Bitfinex, MXC.COM, Binance.US, Binance, HitBTC, OKEx, Bilaxy, Hotbit, KuCoin, Gate.io.
For fiat (mainly USD), Solana cryptocurrency can be bought on the FTX, FTX US, and BINANCE US exchanges.
Solana Price Prediction
At its peak in mid-May 2021, the altcoin was worth $55.91. It's worth noting that SOL was under $2 in January 2021. There is quite a positive SOL price prediction. Some experts predict the average altcoin price in 2021 at the level of $62.
Solana cryptocurrency is relatively inexpensive. But if the project lives up to expectations and provides the infrastructure needed for global deployment, it won't stay cheap for long.
In addition, serious investors believe in Solana's prospects. So, in May 2021, the Solana Foundation launched five funds with total assets of $100 million to develop applications in China. In this, she was helped by Huobi, Gate.io and NGC Ventures, MATH Global Foundation, and Hash Key.
In the same month, the project raised $60 million from Hacken, Gate.io, Coin DCX, and BRZ. The funds will be received by three funds focused on expanding the ecosystem in Ukraine, India, Brazil, and Russia. Funding will be directed to support the development of blockchain applications in DeFi, NFT, and cybersecurity.
In June 2021, Solana Labs raised $314 million through a private token sale. The round was led by venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Polychain Capital with the participation of Alameda Research, CMS Holdings, CoinShares, Jump Trading, Multicoin Capital, Sino Global Capital, and others. Solana Labs will use the raised funds to create a venture capital unit to invest in its own ecosystem and launch a studio for the development of projects based on Solana.
Experts, based on assumptions about an increase in interest in innovative Solana technologies, predict further growth in demand for cryptocurrency and an increase in its value.
On August 16, the price of the native token of the Solana renewed its all-time high at levels above $60. At the time of writing, SOL is trading at $68. The asset ranks 10th in the ranking of the leading cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization with an indicator of $ 17.8 billion.
The content of this article is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. We ask you to do your research.
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