SOL SOL/USD, the native coin of decentralized blockchain platform Solana, has taken part in the recent crypto rally, and the token currently trades at its highest level since late-December 2021. The crypto is celebrating its fourth year anniversary on Saturday, and to commemorate the special occasion, here’s a primer on the platform.
The Origins of Solana: In November 2017, Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko published a white paper describing the proof-of-history, a technique for keeping time between computers that do not trust one another. Utilizing his experience in distributed systems acquired during his tenure at Qualcomm, Mesosphere, and Dropbox, Yakovenko aimed to simplify synchronization to achieve a network that was “blazing fast.” He successfully synchronized computers that didn’t trust each other, resulting in a significantly faster cluster.
Yakovenko’s journey in coding the application led to a collaboration with Qualcomm colleague Greg Fitzgerald who recommended implementing the project in Rust programming language. The project kickstarted on Feb. 13, 2018, with Fitzgerald prototyping the first open-source implementation under the name “Silk” published on GitHub. This initial release showcased the capacity to verify and process 10,000 signed transactions in just over half a second. Another Qualcomm affiliate, Stephen Akridge, demonstrated the potential for enhanced throughput by offloading signature verification to graphics processors.
The trio eventually co-founded a company initially named Loom, later rebranded as Solana Labs to avoid confusion with an Ethereum-based project. The name “Solana” was a nod to Solana Beach, a Southern California town, where the founders lived during their Qualcomm days. On March 28, 2018, the team officially formed the Solana GitHub organization and rebranded “Silk” to “Solana.”
Over the course of 2018, the technology scaled up to run on cloud-based networks, culminating in the publication of a 50-node, permissioned public testnet consistently processing bursts of 250,000 transactions per second in July that year. The company further raised over $20 million through multiple token sales from mid-2018 to July 2019.
The Launch of Solana: Solana made its debut in March 2020, amidst the challenging backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first block was created on March 16, highlighting the resilience and innovation of the Solana team during tumultuous times.
Reflecting on the launch, co-founder Raj Gokal remarked, “On March 16, 2020, lockdowns and financial panic were spreading globally. Despite the prevailing fear and uncertainty, Solana’s design garnered only a handful of believers who ventured forward with courage and conviction to push beyond the barriers. This unyielding spirit drove them forward.”
Subsequently, in June 2021, Solana Labs completed a significant sale of $314 million worth of SOL to a group of funds spearheaded by Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital.
The Present Status of Solana: Fast-forward to the present, Solana has amassed an impressive tally of 276 billion transactions, with over 1,600 validators and 254 million blocks. With a market capitalization of $81.7 billion, SOL currently ranks as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. Trading volumes remain robust, with approximately 11 billion units of SOL changing hands in the past 24 hours.
Gokal emphasized, “Solana is consistently topping various charts including daily trading volume (all-time high of $3.6 billion yesterday!), active users, new tokens, NFTs minted, daily transactions, TPS, Nakamoto coefficient, and a myriad of other metrics.”
Diving into the numbers, an investment of $1,000 in SOL back in April 2020 would have yielded an impressive 1,052.63 tokens. As of Friday’s closing price of $182.96 per token, those same tokens now hold a value of $192,590. This translates to a remarkable return of 19159% over a four-year period, outshining the S&P 500 Index’s modest 29% increase during the same timeframe.
As of the latest check, Solana is trading up by 0.53% at $184.64, slightly off its all-time peak of $260.06 reached on Nov. 6, 2021.
