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When Solana (SOL) launched a little more than two years ago, the blockchain network held a lot of promise. Now, it has become canon fodder for social media banter. Observers quipped that Solana has more power cuts than what is expected for the U.K this winter.
So, did one of the most promising networks in the cryptocurrency world flatter to deceive? It may be a question a lot of people are thinking about.
Killing Ethereum
Solana, the self-proclaimed killer of Ethereum, spoke glowingly about its capabilities when it launched in March 2020.
At the time, it claimed to support more than 50,000 transactions per second (TPS), with over 200 nodes on its testnet. On paper, that made the network comparatively superior to both Ethereum and Bitcoin, which averaged around 13 and five TPS, respectively.
To this day, Solana is often referred to as the most scalable and first truly web-scale network in the world. It is among a few protocols achieving over 3,000 transactions per second, with a total theoretical peak capacity of 65,000 TPS.
Validator nodes, which help keep the blockchain secure, and process transactions, have reached over 2,000, according to the Solana website. Since its launch, Solana processed a total of more than 104 billion transactions.
The network also boasts some of the lowest transaction fees in crypto, costing an average of $0.00025. Ethereum, the most dominant platform in the industry for money markets, NFTs, and dApps, still processes just 20 TPS, at a cost of $0.52 per transaction.
Bitcoin comes in at seven transactions per second, at an average cost of $0.60, as of writing.
Lights out
Despite the comparative advantages, Solana is struggling to reach a point of efficiency. It is plagued by issues of frequent network outages, inconveniencing millions of users.
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