Solana SOL Price

Say Hello to Solana

Solana's Core Innovations

The developers of the project are focused on advanced technological solutions.

History of Solana

• In February 2018, the developers Yakovenko and Fitzgerald published the official white paper and launched the first internal test network. Later that year, they formed a development company that is now known as Solana Labs. It is named in reference to the small beach town called Solana Beach.
• In February 2020, the public testing of the Tour de SOL project began. A month later, the beta version of the main network was launched, and in June the Solana Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at developing the Solana ecosystem and adopting decentralized technologies, was created. Later it was granted more than 160 million native tokens of SOL project and all its intellectual property rights.
• In August 2020, the decentralized exchange Serum was launched on the blockchain. In the same month, Tether launched USDT stablecoin on Solana. Later in October, the USDC stablecoin developed by the Centre Consortium was launched on the blockchain.
• In May 2021, the Solana Foundation launched five foundations with a total of $100 million in assets to develop applications in China, and a month later Solana Labs raised over $300 million in a private token sale.

SOL 

Solana Storage

As a rule, Sol wallets have either a web version or a mobile app. For example, you can find Solana's own Phantom wallet, which is available on Android, iOS and as an extension to Chrome, and has an audience of more than 1 million people. If you have a really large stock of crypto, however, consider using hardware wallets. For example, Ledger, Nano S, Nano X and Nano S Plus.

Top-10 Solana wallets. (source: solana.com)

Mining and Stacking

The Solana ecosystem does not allow token mining, since it is not based on the PoW consensus. But the system does provide SOL token staking, in which coins are delegated to the network's validators while the depositor earns rewards.

To stake Solana, you need to do the following.

• Send SOL to a wallet: it can be Ledger or any other storage that provides the possibility of staking. Some of these wallets do not allow you to buy tokens immediately, so you have to buy other cryptocurrency to exchange it for SOL. You will also have to pass identity verification, something that is always in the best interest of a depositor.
• Select a SOL stake: the steak selection page will display you the yield of the project at that moment, the number of available tokens to invest and other information.
  
• Deposit funds in the stake and lock the SOL. Read the conditions and select the validator you want to support.

Solana Blockchain Network Status - Sep. 2023 (source: solanabeach.io)

It is worth remembering that you will need to pay a small fee when investing and withdrawing funds. Rewards begin to accrue within two epochs (96 hours) after blocking SOL. Funds will be transferred every two days. To withdraw funds from the steak, just click the appropriate button on the invested assets page.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Solana

The main advantages of the network are:

• high transaction speed at a low and constant cost;
• scalability ( thanks to high throughput without sharding and second-tier solutions);
  
• multiple partnerships within the ecosystem;
  
• decentralization;
  
• focus on decentralized applications in the DeFi domain;
  
• an experienced team of developers;
  
• ability to purchase SOL cryptocurrency on a large number of exchanges, both for crypto and fiat;
  
• ability to earn through staking.
  

We should also highlight the disadvantages:

• high coin volatility;
• multiple network failures, hacking of wallets, etc., have occurred during the existence of the project.
  

Summary

Solana is a relatively young project that has already occupied a market niche and continues to expand. This blockchain allows developers to create payment networks, marketplaces, prediction markets, and other types of applications that demand maximum transaction speed. The main advantages, apart from speed, include low fees, as well as the excellent compatibility between any second-level projects.