Hello friends; Hope you are all doing well. Today I am gonna write about my favourite blockchains. But before we discuss favourite blockchain, let me begin by defining blockchain to have a basic understanding and smooth transition into the specifics of the topic

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Blockchain

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Blockchain is a decentralised public ledger system to record transactions. The magic of blockchain was unleashed by Bitcoin blockchain in the field of Defi and later its use cases have embraced other fields of day to day utility too.

As the name implies, a blockchain is a combination of blocks where each block is a storage unit of transactions connected to the previous block by hash function and the chain continues up to the block from where transactions have been initiated. The records are maintained on computers known as nodes. Each node after checking and validating the transaction, stores a copy of it on the ledger and then transmits the information to other nodes for validation and independent storage. In this way, there are multiple checks and balances on the transactions

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My favourite Blockchain - Solana

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Source
Solana is a decentralized, open-source and programmable public blockchain developed by Solana labs and run by the Solana foundation. Solana is aimed at serving as comprehensive support for decentralized applications (Dapps) besides providing some add on advantages to the Pioneer counterparts like Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchain. The transaction speed (50k TPS) is much better than pioneer chains and so is the transaction fee. Along with the above-mentioned advantages, Solana upheld the spirit of decentralization, security, transparency and accountability etc. So trilemma of Blockchain is solved by Solana.

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Unique working algorithm of Solana

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The consensus algorithm followed by Solana is proof of stake (PoS) and proof of history (PoH). Based on these algorithms, Solana has some advantages over the PoW blockchain. Based on Solana Blockchain's PoS algorithm, validator nodes are selected and given mining rights proportionate to the percentage of native tokens staked (SOL). Once validator nodes are selected, the rest of the operation is carried out by the PoH algorithm.

We know that in a decentralised environment consensus of time is a huge problem to tackle. Decentralized networks have solved this problem by incorporating a centralized time system but blockchain does not trust timestamps from any external source. So it is not feasible for blockchain to incorporate a centralized time system as it is external to blockchain. To arrange the data as per the time of occurrence, PoH nodes have installed an internal clock for each node. The message reaching the nodes is arranged in the correct order of the time sequence as per the internal clock of each node. So in the proof of history algorithm, nodes do not need to interact with each other for developing consensus over a sequence of the event and thus saving time and hence better scalability.

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Use the case of Solana

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As mentioned in the introduction of the Solana blockchain, it is a programmable and open-source blockchain. Because of these features, Solan is one of the favourite blocks of developers and is a tough competitor of Etherium blockchain because of its generous support for smart contracts.

Solana blockchain team claims over 400 projects are currently running over it catering to diverse fields like Defi, NFT, Dapps etc. FTX has launched scores of Solana projects. For this task, I'll be discussing Degenerate Ape.

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Degenerate Ape

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Source

Degenerate Ape is Solana based NFT project. We know that the craze of NFT is growing as fast as that of cryptos in general. You might have heard about Eve Harvey, who once changed her Twitter profile picture to Solana. Therefore, the blockchains that are used to sponsor NFT projects have a competitive advantage over Non-NFT blockchains. To be specific, the Ethereum blockchain has crippled users by charging heavy gas fees. The breakthrough was achieved with the launch of NFT sponsoring projects like Degenerate Ape on non Etherium blockchains like Solana.

Let me briefly tell you about degenerate Apes. Here you have to mint Apes. Apes are not all alike but are categorised into different classes as Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super Rare, and Mythic. As we ascend this hierarchy, the rarity of characters increases and so does the price. For minting an Ape, the user must have access to Phantom, Sollet or Solflare wallet.

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Shortcomings and way out

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For those among you who have linked with the Solana blockchain, you might have heard or experienced the 2021 crash of Solana. Sol transactions were hanged for about 8 hours and it was frustrating for the sol users because every one of us was in a panic as we thought that there was some hacking attack launched on the network. Fortnite thing is that it was not due to any hacking attack but was due to a huge number of transactions processed data at that time because of IDO offerings by the network.

The network was congested because of lower scalability that capped around 60000 transactions in 2021. Network users were immediately briefed by the team about the failure of the network. The team cited that the crash was due to congestion of the network by a huge number of transactions. Things were back to normal within 8 hours and the good thing is that the team had worked untiringly thereafter and updated the network version and shifted all the projects of the network onto the upgraded version.

The scalability of the network was also enhanced by many means and caps about 400000 transactions nowadays.

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Conclusion

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My concluding remarks would refer to the areas where there is still scope for improvement. I am pointing towards the decentralization and scalability of the Solana network. There is a potential for decentralization of the Solana blockchain and so is an improvement in the scalability because we know that we are having blockchains that process millions of transactions per second. Solana should work to address these issues to stand out in this competitive world with scores of blockchains.

Thanks