An Overview of Solana Blockchain Network

Solana blockchainDecoding the Solana blockchain platform, its core functionalities, and its consensus mechanism.Blockchain networks like Ethereum are widely used for the development of decentralized applications and smart contracts. However, one of the biggest challenges faced by blockchain is scalability. With the growth of these networks, transaction speed limitations and congestion arise.Solana is a new blockchain platform that facilitates the development of smart contracts along with enabling scalability. In this article, we review the rising innovation of the Solana platform, its use of consensus mechanisms to approve transactions, and its core functionalities.Solana is an innovative platform created by Anatoly Yakovenko to address all the shortcomings of much older and well-established blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum with improved efficiency. The Solana network addressed the issues of speed and scalability currently faced by these leading blockchains with their growth in size and global acceptance.Solana distinguishes itself from other blockchain projects through its Proof of History (PoH) approach to reach consensus. As a result, the Solana network can scale and process a faster transaction throughput of up to 50,000 transactions per second (TPS). The platform is able to support a hypothetical upper bound throughput of 710,000 TPS on a standard gigabit structure and a throughput of 28.4 million transactions per second on a 40-gigabit structure.Unlike the Proof of Work (PoW) technology that Bitcoin uses as the consensus mechanism to approve transactions, PoH creates historical records for every transaction that occurs within the network. This historical record helps to prove that a transaction occurred at a specific time.The Solana structure is a suite of exceptional functionalities. The most popular one by far is the implementation of the PoH consensus that rewards users with speed. Some of the core innovations of the network are highlighted below.The Gulf Stream Protocol. This protocol is what enables the network…