Solana is a Layer-1 blockchain and smart contract platform designed to prioritize scalability without compromising security or decentralization. Founded in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko, an ex-Dropbox engineer, Solana has one of the fastest-growing crypto ecosystems with developer adoption and general interest due to its high transaction speeds.
Currently, the Solana blockchain claims to achieve over 50,000 transactions per second with low fees. This is made possible through its scaling solution, which is a cryptographic clock called proof-of-history (PoH) combined with the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
Using PoH, nodes in the Solana network can determine the time and order of events through an SHA-256 verifiable delay function stored in the ledger. Each validator maintains its own clock and generates hashed cryptographic timestamps, thus eliminating the need to talk to other nodes to verify events. This makes the Solana blockchain highly efficient and primed for scalable growth.
