Original title: What happens to Solana now?
Authors: Henry Ang, Mustafa Yilham, Allen Zhao Jermaine Wong, Bixin Ventures
foreword
foreword
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source:https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1347964322459262977
This close relationship has allowed Solana and its ecological projects to develop rapidly in 2021, but since the thunderstorm and bankruptcy of FTX and the adverse impact of this incident on Solana, the price of the token SOL has fallen by about 58% since its high point. %, TVL (in US dollars) fell by about 70%.
The ripple effect has also affected on-chain user activity. Active accounts in the last 30 days on Solana were only7.15 million, while BNB Chain (17.9 million）、Polygon（13.7 million) and Ethereum (9.94 million) are leading in this indicator.
However, amidst this chaos there is a silver lining. Despite the FTX crash, the Solana developer community has stated that they are committed to building on Solana.
From a recent study aimed at the developer communityinvestigationAs we can see in , the developer community has also indicated their intention to continue adopting Solana. It is worth noting that about 73% of developers see no need to leave Solana, and about 67% of developers choose to deploy only on Solana. This can be understood as the remaining developers remain optimistic about Solanas future and will continue to work on Solana.
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source:https://twitter.com/SOLBigBrain/status/1590446631966543872? s= 20&t=F 8 GClfwcTXx 5 wbI 9 LtSdkQ
In order to dispassionately analyze the future of Solana, let’s first look at the fundamentals of the blockchain.
The network has grown by leaps and bounds in terms of users, developers, and on-chain activity since its inception, and NFTs are also very popular.
While user numbers, developer numbers, and on-chain metrics were all negatively impacted by the FTX debacle, it’s important to recognize the progress Solana has made since its inception. SolanasThis articleWith a wide range of statistics covered, we highlight a few that we think are interesting:
As of October 2022, there are more than 11.5 million active accounts on Solana, of which 1.7 million are active paying (transactions have generated Gas fee) users. The historical peaks for these two numbers were 22.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively.
Open source codebases and developer activity are growing exponentially. As of November 2022, there are 20,717 repositories and 1,114 programs, an increase of about 7.6 times and 8.3 times since August 2021, respectively.
DAO tools and adoption are also growing at a high rate. Since August 2021, approximately 15 million SOLs are being managed in 1,700 DAOs, an increase of approximately 43.3x and 1,700x respectively.
NFTs have been a breakthrough use case on Solana, having attracted millions of new users to the network. Users minted over 21.9M NFTs in 7.2M wallets, with $1.1b in sales for the first sale and $2.5b in sales for the secondary resale.
Solana solves the problem of network instability.
Since early 2022, Solana has been plagued by network instability, which has been a major point of criticism for it. We are in early JulyexploreThe long-term viability of Solana, and potential fixes planned for the stability of the Solana network.
Currently available fixes are:
Created QUIC, a protocol built by Google to allow more control over validator traffic to transaction streams
Built QOS (Stake Weighted Quality of Service) to ensure that any verifier with X% stake can forward at least X% of transaction packets to the leader verifier
Introduced Priority Fees, allowing users to express the urgency of their transactions by specifying an additional fee, which is paid upon transaction execution and block inclusion
These three fixes work together to reduce spam and improve network stability. QUIC allows validators to limit the traffic they receive so they can build blocks more efficiently, while QoS ensures that no one validator can crowd out the others. With these improvements, the possibility of spamming the lead validators is reduced, and users who want to complete transactions first should take advantage of the priority fee feature to ensure faster block inclusion.
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Solana will be faster and more reliable
With Firedancer, an independent validator client developed by Jump, Solana will push the boundaries of blockchain throughput. Without any technical debt, Jump will be built layer by layer, following the data path of package ingress, runtime, and consensus to optimize Solana for network speed. During Solana Breakpoint 2022, it was officially announced that Firedancer has the potential of 1.2 million TPS under test conditions, bringing Solana one step closer to the vision of becoming a state machine that processes transactions at the speed of light.
Firedancer will also be developed in C/C++, reducing shared dependencies on existing validator clients, thereby improving network reliability. It also reduces hardware requirements while making running nodes cheaper and easier through performance improvements.
Blockchain infrastructure, developer tools, and programmability are also being improved to help developers build on Solana.
google cloud
Google Cloud made a series of announcements during Solana Breakpoint aimed at improving existing node and data query infrastructure. Google Cloud has been running a block producing validator on Solana to participate in the network and will use its experience to bring the blockchain node engine to Solana in 2023. This enables one-click deployment of Solana nodes in the cloud, which were previously expensive to deploy due to high hardware requirements (128 GB RAM, 2.8 GHz CPU, and 24 cores/24 threads).
Google Cloud will also start indexing Solanas historical data and enable BigQuery in the first quarter of 2023 so that the developer ecosystem on Solana can access historical data. Given the high costs required to maintain archive nodes and the complexities associated with interpreting data on-chain, this initiative is a huge boost for developers working with Solana data. Google Cloud will also be able to accept all service fees paid in the form of USDC, which is of great significance for projects whose main form of income is cryptocurrency.
account compression
With the vision of synchronizing the global state at the speed of light, on-chain storage will only grow over time. To proactively address this potential issue, Solana Labs and Metaplex Studios have been working closely on account compression techniques to reduce the amount of data stored on-chain. The on-chain state of the compressed NFT will be stored in a Merkle tree, and detailed account data can be retrieved in an RPC provider-managed data store. This will also ensure that developers can easily implement account compaction given their familiarity with existing RPC infrastructure. The first use cases will expand into the NFT realm, with Solana Labs Concurrent Merkle Tree program (Gummyroll) and Metaplex Foundations compressed NFT program (Bubblegum) available. This means that storage costs no longer scale linearly and can result in substantial savings, as follows:
Looking ahead, account compression will expand beyond NFT, into social media applications, games, ticketing, metaverse, enterprise use cases, etc. It is expected that developers will develop more interesting usage scenarios.
xNFTs
xNFT is a revolutionary new standard that will represent the tokenization of ownership. In its first iteration, Backpack, it innovated the way Web3.0 wallets are built. Similar to other wallets, it manages your private keys and connects to applications, but unlike other wallets, it is asset and protocol agnostic, which allows developers to build permissionless asset management tools on a single interface. It is also open source, which means that anyone can implement new core features by requesting the interface, which provides a test bed for new features and applications. Essentially, xNFT will drive more mobile clients to have a more user-friendly experience.
Token 2022
Now a new program that will add new token functionality is in development. Previously, adding composability to tokens required adding new programs to existing token standards, which could be cumbersome. With Token 2022, it is possible to include extensions after the 165 byte standard token account, enabling many new use cases such as:
Confidential transactions, which provide users with more privacy by obscuring the amount being transferred, it is important to note that the transaction parties can still see the relevant information on-chain
Interest-bearing/reset tokens that can provide additional functionality for applications such as stake pools and lending protocols
Memo requirements for transactions, where customer-facing applications processing consumer payments only accept transactions for which the memo is specified, which facilitates easier categorization of payment types
The CPI protection extension forces dApps to transact through delegation, which means users only allocate a specific amount or type of tokens that the program can spend. This will reduce wallet drain when interacting with bad dApps
clickhereRead about the extensive extension and implementation resources available for Token 2022.
This makes Solana a hotbed of innovation for a variety of applications, enabling mass market adoption
While there are many applications currently being built on Solana, we wanted to highlight projects in different verticals that all have great potential to attract the next wave of non-crypto-native users.
Dialect
Dialect has partnered with more than 50 projects on Solana to roll out its own Smart Messaging specification that enables actionable link previews. Users will be able to use the wallet-to-wallet mobile messaging layer to send money, mint and buy NFTs, vote on DAO proposals, and play games, all within the Dialect app. They also launched a $100,000 incentive program to encourage developers to build applications on top of their smart messaging layer. Our view is that messaging is a core communication part that Web3 currently lacks, and Dialect can help bridge that gap while protecting users privacy.
Teleport
Solana is also an option for Teleport, a ride-sharing company that aims to eliminate centralized matching of riders and drivers with TRIP, a decentralized marketplace where various ride-sharing apps can be embedded. Passengers will be able to pay with USDC credit cards, while drivers will get paid directly to their bank accounts or via USDC. Ride-sharing is already woven into urban life around the world, and we hope to see Teleport disrupt incumbent operators and attract new Web3 users with real-world utility.
Helium
Helium is also an application that can reach millions with real-world utility. Originally a network for IoT devices, Helium has branched out into wireless mobile networks and recently opted to migrate to Solana. The project is trying to cover any blind spots in the Helium network by partnering with T-mobile, they will provide users with mobile plans as low as $5, and each mobile plan subscriber will be able to use the Solana wallet immediately. Its a low-key starter tool to get new Web3 users to those applications, and Solana also has to facilitate composability between applications.
With Saga and a mobile dApp store, Solana tries to show what Web3 means for mobile.
Whether we are using it or not, our mobile phone is always with us. Mobile experiences enrich the daily lives of billions of users, and Saga seeks to demonstrate the benefits of Web3 through mobile devices. Saga will provide everyone with a familiar mobile experience, with the ability to asynchronously notify you when coins are minted or when someone requests payment from you. Saga can also be a digital gateway where users can pay with Solana Pay, use biometric authentication, and play crypto games anytime, anywhere, seamlessly integrating with our daily work.
The main functions of the Saga Mobile are the Seed Vault and the Solana dApp store. Seed Vault is a key storage function deeply integrated in the mobile phone software and hardware stack to protect the security of private keys at all times. This is a trustworthy user interface, and the Android OS cannot see the passcode you enter for your seed phrase, take screenshots, or exploit keylogging. This gives users the freedom to sign transactions anytime, anywhere, knowing their keys are safe. The Solana dApp store will be a free app hub with crypto-friendly policies for DeFi, games, wallets, and NFT apps. This frees developers to focus on building products that billions of users can access anytime, anywhere. The Solana dApp store will open for submissions in January 2023, and we look forward to the innovative applications that will be built soon.
Our view is that this is the right path to bring the next wave of users onto the Solana chain. While most other blockchains only focus on improving the underlying blockchain technology, Solana has been improving while addressing user experience issues.
Community-driven efforts like Solana Spaces, SuperteamDAO, and Metacamp are understated and impressive, and have helped countless aspiring developers and new users join the network
Solana Spaces is an experiential space that allows people to recognize and experience Solana in real life. Phantom is set up in the experience space to allow customers to learn about self-custody wallets, and then they can scan the QR code to complete tutorials, such as learning DeFi with Orca, learning about blockchain games with Aurory, learning about NFT with JustApe, and experiencing 1/1 Art at Formfunction wait. These experiences are all realized in the Phantoms wallet in the store, and customers are rewarded with NFTs after each successful completion, which can build a deeper relationship with the end user. Since launching 3 months ago, theyve had over 30,000 customers and completed over 10,000 tutorials at their two brick-and-mortar locations in New York and Miami. They are now extending this program through SpacesDAO to anyone interested in running their own Solana store. It is an open source retailer model where all IP designed or built, from architectural plans to fixture drawings, software, merchandise, is available to anyone wishing to build their own store. Interested parties can join through a GeoNFT representing the coordinates of the store on the chain, and give the holder the right to redeem it, by signing a contract with the DAO, thus giving the store real-world legal protection and territorial exclusivity. To kick off this initiative, SpacesDAO and the Solana Foundation can provide loans or grants of up to $50,000 to store owners looking to open new stores.
SuperteamDAO is a foundational resource center, community-led and geared toward aspiring developers looking to build on the Solana ecosystem. The organization is made up of four local superteams from India, Germany, Turkey and Vietnam, organized aroundstudy、andandto developorganized by the three pillars. Aspiring developers will be able to learn more about Solana Core and find opportunities to make money through project rewards. Members can find inspiration for building content through the creative library and apply within 48 hoursNo equity funding。
Metacamp is an NFT membership-based co-creation space in Singapore, bringing together investors, startups and talents in the Web3 industry in Southeast Asia. The Solana-focused company further upskills professionals in the Web3 space by offering members educational programs, community events, and enterprise workshops.
secondary title
How did Solana reverse the negative public perception of it?
Although there are no flaws from the bottom of the technology, the public opinion and public influence around Solana are still negative and pessimistic. Here are a few ways we think we can change this and shift the public spotlight back to inclusive communities and the technological advancements that have been made.
Termination of relationship with FTX/Alameda
According to the latest reports, the Solana Foundation has $1 million in cash exposure to FTX, less than 1% of its funds, and none of its assets are in custody with FTX. The Solana Foundation also holds approximately 3.24 million FTX Trading shares, as well as approximately 3.43 million FTT tokens and 134.54 million SRM tokens, most of which have only a small fraction of their value left. Solana Labs, on the other hand, has no exposure to FTX.
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While these tokens will eventually hit the market, our view is that Solana will build a new thriving ecosystem through its vibrant developer community, which will then drive high user activity, which will translate into demand for the token. As Alameda goes into liquidation, its also likely that their Solana holdings will be distributed more evenly among investors and creditors.
Solving decentralization/censorship resistance issues
The public perception of Solana remains a centralized chain. Anatoly describes decentralization as the number of independent copies of state history available, and as of today, the Bitcoin network has more than15, 000 full nodes, while Ethereum and Solana each have about8, 000 peace treaty3, 000 a complete state copy. By this definition, Solana is currently the third largest decentralized blockchain.
Solana also operates with an impressive diversity of operations across its roughly 2,000 validators participating in consensus, with staking spread across 230 unique data centers and no more than 9% in any data center. It also has 31Nakamoto coefficient(Nakamoto Coefficient), ahead of AVAX and Thorchain (29 and 28 respectively).
Going forward, Solana is also working on a Diet (light) client to reduce validation costs. With these clients, the trust-minimizing assumption of the majority of consensus participating validators will be improved. Therefore, if the majority is not to be trusted, Solana could adopt a user-activated soft fork similar to Ethereums proposed one. If interested in censorship resistance in POS networks, we will discusshereGive a broad presentation.
Solving the business development problem
While Solana is often said to have great tech, Solanas business development is lacking compared to what Polygon has achieved. Ben Sparango, head of business development, mentioned in a recent podcast that while existing Web2/Fortune 500 companies are still their intended partners, they will do so incrementally, as some of these companies are fulfilling other tasks that are not contributing to the growth of blocks Chain usage or activity. A successful example is the recentASICS-StepN and SolanaPartnership with ASICS, where ASICS integrated Solana Pay, sold 3,000 devices for a total of $600,000 in USDC denominated revenue with no credit card transaction fees. The associated NFT that comes with each sale is priced at around 1,000 SOL on the secondary market.
in conclusion
in conclusion
To sum up the above discussion, the relationship between Solana and FTX Alameda is like a roller coaster of ups and downs. While the future of Solana looks bleak right now, if we peel back the layers, we will continue to see a promising community and a performant, scalable blockchain. Solana is innovating on many fronts such as being the app of choice for potential consumers like Dialect, Helium, Teleport, and opening up a whole new customer base on mobile with its flagship Saga phone.
We think Solana can come out of this setback and change the negative and negative public perception of the relationship with FTX/Alameda, lack of decentralization and slow business development, and pave the way for new applications that can attract the next billion users the way.
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