Solana is a web3 infrastructure designed to be fast, decentralized, scalable, and energy-efficient. It aims to bring blockchain to the masses, supporting experiences for power users, new consumers, and everyone in between. Solana is being used by developers worldwide and powers tools and integrations from companies all around the globe.
Features
Speed
Solana is designed to be fast. It has block times of 400 milliseconds, and as hardware gets faster, so will the network. This speed is intended to ensure that users do not have to wait for transactions to process.
Decentralization
The Solana network is validated by thousands of nodes that operate independently of each other. This decentralization ensures that data remains secure and resistant to censorship.
Scalability
Solana is built to handle thousands of transactions per second, and fees for both developers and users remain less than $0.01. This scalability makes it suitable for mass adoption.
Energy Efficiency
Solana's proof of stake network and other innovations minimize its impact on the environment. Each Solana transaction uses about the same energy as a few Google searches.
Cost
The average cost per transaction on the Solana network is $0.00025, making it an affordable option for users and developers alike.
Management
Solana is managed by the Solana Foundation.
Controversies
Solana is a blockchain platform that was designed for security and scalability, but its underlying design has sacrificed decentralization. The platform has experienced frequent downtime, with the network going down at least nine times in 2022 alone.
Solana has been plagued with examples of lies and fraud since its inception, exposing a pattern of bad behavior. At the birth of the project, the Solana team stated that the total circulating supply was 8.2 million, but in reality, the total circulating supply was actually above 20 million, betraying the promises of the original investment terms.
There is also a history of deceptive practices around figures used to evaluate cryptocurrencies, such as Total Value Locked (TVL) and Transactions Per Second (TPS). By January 2021, it was exposed that the TPS for Solana was massively inflated as Solana counts consensus coordination messages as if they are transactions.
Solana security is not just reduced against DDoS attacks since this attack can be combined with a 51% attack. In September 2021, Solana was down for over 20 hours due to excessive memory use by nodes.
Solana has been caught lying and committing fraud on several occasions, including lying about circulating supply, making false statements about TPS, and being complicit in "faking" peak TVL numbers. Solana made dangerous trade-offs in design, putting everyone at risk.
All of this history adds up to display a consistent pattern of bad behavior. Solana's reputation continues to become more tarnished every time the network fails. From the perspective of critics, Solana does not deserve support.
Circulating Supply
At the birth of the project, the Solana team stated that the total circulating supply was 8.2 million. However, in reality, the total circulating supply was actually above 20 million, betraying the promises of the original investment terms.
Transaction Per Second (TPS) Inflation
By January 2021, it had been exposed that the TPS for Solana was massively inflated as Solana counts consensus coordination messages as if they are transactions.
Fake Total Value Locked (TVL)
On August 5th, 2022, a Coindesk article exposed that the majority of Solana TVL was fake. As two developers pretended to be 10+ developers and counted the same TVL over and over, this accounted for more than 70% of Solana's $10B TVL at its peak.
Design Trade-Offs
Solana made dangerous trade-offs in design, putting everyone at risk. Most blockchains use non-deterministic block creation, as it adds to security and censorship resistance. Instead, in Solana, it is possible to predict and therefore attack the next block producers inline.
Frequent Downtime
The Solana network has an atrocious history of crashes, downtime, and network outages. In 2022 alone, the network went down at least nine times.