Solana (blockchain platform)
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Article ImagesSolana is a public blockchain platform with smart contract functionality. Its native cryptocurrency is SOL.
Icon of Solana | |
Denominations | |
---|---|
Symbol | ◎ |
Code | SOL |
Development | |
Original author(s) | Anatoly Yakovenko, Greg Fitzgerald, Stephen Akridge,[1] Raj Gokal[2] |
White paper | https://solana.com/solana-whitepaper.pdf |
Code repository | https://github.com/solana-labs/solana |
Development status | Active |
Written in | Rust |
Developer(s) | Solana Labs & Solana Foundation |
Source model | Open source |
License | Apache 2.0 |
Ledger | |
Ledger start | March 16, 2020; 4 years ago |
Block time | 400 milliseconds |
Block explorer | https://explorer.solana.com/ |
Circulating supply | 355,284,696.192 SOL (as of 10 October 2022) |
Valuation | |
Exchange rate | US$33.01 (as of 1 October 2022) |
Website | |
Website | https://solana.com/ |
History
Solana was proposed in a white paper Anatoly Yakovenko published in November 2017. This paper described a technique called "proof of history".[3][4][non-primary source needed]
On 16 March 2020, Solana's first block was created.[5]
On the 3 August 2022, it was announced that the Solana ecosystem had been targeted by hackers, affecting 9,231 Solana wallets.[6] Four Solana wallet addresses took approximately $4.1 million in total from victims. All wallets affected were at one point created, imported, or used in the Slope wallet applications on iOS and Android. Security researchers discovered that Slope wallet sent sensitive account data to its remote servers in clear text.[7]
Lawsuit
On July 1, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed against Solana. The lawsuit accused Solana of selling unregistered securities tokens in the form of Solana (SOL) from March 24, 2020, onward and that Solana deliberately misled investors concerning the total circulating supply of SOL tokens.
According to the lawsuit, Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana Labs, lent a market maker more than 11.3 million tokens in April 2020 and failed to disclose this information to the public. The lawsuit claimed that Solana stated it would reduce the supply by this amount, but it only burned 3.3 million tokens.[8]
Design
Solana achieves consensus using a proof-of-stake mechanism and its model known as "proof-of-history" mechanism. Proof of history enables the network to operate faster because nodes do not need to communicate to validate a block. The Solana whitepaper describes this design as decentralized clock. Proof of history enables network participants to have a high degree of certainty that an event took place at a specific moment in time. An example of proof of history is when a person takes a picture of today's newspaper with the date and time recorded so that it can be used to verify the newspaper in the future.[4][9][10]
Like various other blockchains, Solana can run smart contracts. Solana's execution environment is based on eBPF, which allows the Rust, C, and C++ programming languages to be used.[11][third-party source needed]
Outages and Security incidences
Solana has experienced multiple outages in 2021 and 2022.
On 14 September 2021, the Solana blockchain went offline after a surge of transactions caused the network to fork, and different validators had different views of the state of the network. The network was brought back online the next day on 15 September 2021.[12] The Solana blockchain again went offline on 1 May and 31 May 2022. The outage at the beginning of the month lasted roughly seven hours, and the one at the end of the month lasted about four and a half hours.[13][14]
On 1 October 2022, the Solana network went down for 6 hours due to a single misconfigured node.[15]
See also
References
- ^ "History". Solana.com. Solana Foundation. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ "India Will Push Blockchain Platform Solana Get To 1 Bn Users: Cofounder Raj Gokal". Inc42 Media. 2021-09-18. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
- ^ "History | Solana Docs". docs.solana.com. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
- ^ a b Echter, Brandon (2021-11-30). "Proof of History: How Solana brings time to crypto". solana.com. Retrieved 2022-05-14.
- ^ "Explorer | Solana". explorer.solana.com. Retrieved 2022-05-07.
- ^ "Hacking attack drains £5m from 8,000 wallets linked to Solana crypto network". the Guardian. 2022-08-03. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
- ^ "8/2/2022 Slope Wallet Incident Update". solana.com. 6 August 2022. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
- ^ Miller, Rosemarie. "New Lawsuit Alleging That Solana Is A Security Could Have Big Implications For The Crypto Investment Landscape". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
- ^ Locke, Taylor (2021-11-05). "Solana is up 12,000% this year—what to know before buying the Ethereum competitor". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
- ^ Yakovenko, solana-whitepaper.pdf. "Solana: A new architecture for a high performance blockchain" (PDF). solana.com. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ "Overview | Solana Docs". docs.solana.com. Retrieved 2022-02-03.
- ^ Shumba, Camomile (15 September 2021). "Solana says it is back up and running after a surge in transactions caused the network to crash the day before". Business Insider. Retrieved 2 December 2021 – via Yahoo News.
- ^ Sigalos, MacKenzie (1 June 2022). "Solana suffered its second outage in a month, sending price plunging". CNBC.com. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
- ^ Evans, Brian (1 June 2022). "Solana tumbles as its blockchain network suffers 2nd outage in a month". Business Insider. Retrieved 2 June 2022 – via finance.yahoo.com.
- ^ Locke, Taylor (1 October 2022). "Solana back online after another outage. Here's what happened". Fortune. Retrieved 2 October 2022.