Original Title: "Evaluating Solana for Enterprise Use: A Comprehensive Guide"

Author: Helius

Translation: Joyce, BlockBeats

Enterprises planning to integrate blockchain technology into their operations are considering Solana due to its advantages in speed and cost-effectiveness. Solana is a strong competitor adopted by enterprises and has recently gained popularity.

In this article, we will explore the unique features and advantages that make Solana a viable choice for enterprises. We will also examine real-life cases of companies that have successfully integrated with Solana, explore the reasons for existing blockchain projects to migrate to Solana, and discover the value of new Ethereum scaling solutions through Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) here.

Why should I choose Solana?

Solana is designed for scalability, as it can provide high transaction speed, low latency, and affordable fees. It also focuses on optimizing on-chain storage, maintaining high decentralization, and minimizing its impact on the environment. In this section, we will introduce:

Speed and Latency - How Solana Achieves High Transaction Throughput

Transaction Fees - The predictability and affordability of transaction fees.

State Compression - Optimizing On-Chain Storage

Decentralization - the degree of decentralization of the network.

About Criticism of Centralization - Addressing Common Issues with Centralization

Energy Efficiency - Solana's Sustainable Development Approach

Speed and Latency

For enterprises, speed is crucial. Slow transactions may hinder innovation and the practical application of blockchain technology. For example, if transaction times are delayed beyond the expected wait time for users using traditional systems, problems may arise.

Source: Solana's raw TPS in the past six hours at the time of publication of this article

Solana is designed for high transaction throughput. It processes an average of 400 user-generated transactions per second (TPS), with peaks exceeding 2000 TPS. In terms of raw TPS (including voting transactions by validators to reach consensus), Solana averages around 4000 TPS. Solana's theoretical limit on a standard gigabit network is 710,000 TPS, and on a 40-gigabit network, it is 28.4 million TPS, as stated in Solana's documentation. Thanks to innovations such as Firedancer (a new validator client created by Jump Crypto), the network has the potential to achieve such high speeds. In comparison, the Ethereum network (including all its sidechains) had an average TPS of about 42 TPS last month, as reported on ethtps.info.

Unlike traditional blockchains that process one transaction at a time, Solana's runtime system, Sealevel, aims to process transactions in parallel. Sealevel achieves this goal by utilizing all available cores from validators. Solana's transactions explicitly specify all the states they will interact with, allowing non-conflicting transactions to be processed simultaneously.

Proof of History (PoH) also helps improve the speed of Solana. PoH is a cryptographic timestamp function used for transactions, allowing nodes to reach consensus on event order without the need for communication. This can speed up transaction confirmation time without compromising security or scalability.

Source: In-depth exploration of Solana, a high-performance blockchain network by Visa

Solana performs well in terms of transaction finality, which is the time required for a transaction to be confirmed on the network. Solana's target slot time is 400 milliseconds. In reality, it can vary between 500-600 milliseconds depending on network demand, but it is still faster than other leading blockchains. For example, in a deep dive on Solana by Visa, data provided by Circle was used to analyze blockchain confirmation times in blocks and seconds/minutes. Visa noted that USDC on Solana typically requires around 0.4 seconds and one block for confirmation. In comparison:

Avalanche's USDC and EUROC take approximately 2 seconds and 1 block to confirm.

It takes approximately 5 seconds and 1 block confirmation for USDC on Stellar to be confirmed.

It takes about 3 minutes and 12 blocks to confirm USDC, EUROC, and ETH on Ethereum.

It takes about 30 minutes and 372 blocks to confirm the bridging of USDC on Polygon.

Solana is not only fast, but also superior to all other blockchains in terms of transaction finality.

Transaction Fees

资料来源：深入探讨Visa 的高性能区块链网络 Solana

Source: In-depth exploration of Solana, a high-performance blockchain network from Visa

The transaction fees of Solana are very low, usually less than 0.001 USD, and the average fee without voting ranges from 0.000005 to 0.00007 SOL, according to Solana Compass. Based on the price of SOL at 23.75 USD, this is approximately equivalent to 0.000119 USD to 0.00168 USD.

Source: In-depth exploration of Solana, a high-performance blockchain network by VisaVisa 的高性能区块链网络 Solana

The uniqueness of Solana lies in its predictable fees. The network uses a localized fee market to manage demand, ensuring that only transactions attempting to access specific high-demand states will see an increase in fees. This localization is different from gas-based networks such as Ethereum, where users paid over $150 million in total for failed transactions during past high-demand periods. Solana isolates congestion and creates localized fee markets based on state contention domains, rather than using a global fee market, to maintain low fee levels.

Solana provides low-cost and predictable fees.

State Compression

In sharp contrast, Solana is very energy-efficient. The average energy consumption per transaction on Solana is only 658 joules. The average energy used per non-voting Solana transaction (i.e. user-generated transactions) is only 7568 joules. In the long run, the energy consumed by a single Solana transaction is equivalent to the energy used for several online searches. This is less energy than charging an iPhone or turning on an LED light bulb for an hour.

The Solana Foundation is committed to neutralizing Solana's carbon impact. Solana is the first Layer 1 blockchain with real-time energy emission tracking capabilities. The emission tracker software is directly embedded in Solana nodes, providing dynamic and detailed metrics that are accessible for free. These metrics include RPC node emissions, emission granularity, marginal (or indirect) emissions, implied emissions, and power usage effectiveness (PUE). The Solana Foundation encourages all projects and validators to check their emission data and take mitigation strategies. For example, Orca has created the Orca Climate Fund (OCF), a community-driven initiative aimed at promoting climate sustainability.

OCF is not an isolated effort; Solana has a growing climate-focused ecosystem. Some notable climate-focused projects on Solana include:

GainForest - A Swiss non-profit organization that uses the transparency of Solana and artificial intelligence to help combat deforestation.

WaterDAO - A water credit verification agency dedicated to more decentralized and regenerative water infrastructure.

Sunrise Stake - a regenerative finance dApp designed to strengthen the Solana blockchain while using staking rewards to offset carbon emissions.

As managers of technological progress and environmental sustainability, we have a responsibility to support and invest in solutions that align with these values. Solana's commitment to energy efficiency is a model worth considering - it provides a carbon-neutral blockchain solution with an annual carbon footprint of 9579 tons of CO2 and zero net carbon impact. This commitment to energy efficiency is deeply rooted in the core architecture of the network, making it a convincing choice for environmentally conscious enterprises.

Solana Permissioned Environment

资料来源：Solana Permissioned Environments (SPE) Introduction by Matt Sorg

For enterprises that need to comply with certain regulatory guidelines or compliance requirements, blockchain provides a flexible solution. Blockchain doesn't necessarily have to be a large, permissionless network. Instead, enterprise blockchains can opt for permissioned blockchains, which use shared and immutable ledgers that can only be accessed by authorized members. Network members can control what information each organization or member can see, as well as the actions each organization or member can take. In this environment, business partners don't have to trust each other. Trust is built into the design of the blockchain, providing greater transparency and verifiability.

Although blockchain has the potential to achieve cost benefits through simplifying changes and automating processes, it is worth noting that the actual cost savings may vary depending on specific use cases, existing infrastructure, and many other factors related to operational costs. Nevertheless, blockchain has the advantage of reducing paperwork errors, paperwork work, and other management costs.

Solana Permissioned Environments (SPE) brings the powerful capabilities of Solana to enterprises with custom requirements. Here, enterprises can run their own Solana instances in dedicated environments, tailoring all the advantages of Solana to their specific needs. SPE features high throughput, parallelization, affordable costs, fast settlement times, and low environmental impact.

Solana comes with a set of local innovations that do not require third-party tools. This includes state compression, support for the Solidity programming language, programming methods for bridging across different blockchains, and built-in support for zero-knowledge proofs. Solana's new token standard, Token22, introduces multiple features such as confidential transfers and transfer hooks, further enhancing the ability of enterprises to build SPEs.

VISA: Why Companies Choose Solana

There is an increasing interest in blockchain technology for payments and digital currencies among institutions and corporate departments, which is evident. Visa is one of the major payment networks that has been among the first to experiment with stablecoin settlements on Ethereum, and has recently expanded its pilot program to include issuing and acquiring partners as well as Solana. According to Visa's own analysis, Solana is "a blockchain that is innovatively designed to process over 2000 transactions per second."

In Visa's comprehensive review of Solana, they outlined the payment potential of the network and the success of Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot. They noted that "[Solana] is poised for payments due to its speed, scalability, and low transaction costs, making it a strong candidate for efficient blockchain settlement tracks using stablecoins such as USDC." The report also compared Solana's features to other leading blockchains and found that Solana consistently scored the highest.

Although Solana's current throughput cannot match Visa's own 65,000 TPS capability, it has the potential to surpass current limitations. Visa is a company responsible for transmitting a total transaction volume of $14.5 trillion in over 200 countries/regions globally, and it believes that Solana is a "compelling payment value proposition".

Visa's interest in Solana is part of the trend of enterprises adopting this technology more widely. For example, Shopify has integrated with Solana Pay, providing millions of merchants with more dynamic and efficient payment options for their customers. Discord has also added Solana integration for linking roles, which is a first for any blockchain. Google Cloud is also running a block generator validator on Solana.

With the continuous development of blockchain technology and the ecosystem, Solana's high throughput, low latency, low transaction fees, and parallel processing capabilities make it a candidate that enterprises should consider integrating into their operations.

Helium: Why Blockchain Projects Choose Solana

Existing blockchain projects are also choosing to migrate to Solana. Helium is one such example, which is a decentralized LoRaWAN network that supports personal hotspots in over 170 countries and 5G services in certain US cities. Helium aims to create a decentralized wireless infrastructure to support Internet of Things (IoT) devices. To achieve this, they have created a new protocol called LongFi, which combines the remote capabilities of LoRaWAN with Helium's own blockchain. Users can purchase and host their own hotspots and receive tokens in exchange for providing nodes to the network. These nodes are similar to mini cellular towers, creating a peer-to-peer wireless network composed of small, low-power devices connected over long distances.

HIP 70 proposed by the Helium core development team aims to improve operational efficiency by migrating Helium from its own blockchain to Solana. The proposal states that this migration will enable the Helium ecosystem to achieve longer normal operating times, stronger composability, and faster user experiences, while maintaining high security and lower usage costs. The Helium community overwhelmingly voted in favor of the proposal, and Helium will migrate to Solana in April 2023.

During the migration process, Helium casts each hotspot as an NFT. Due to state compression, this can only be achieved on Solana; casting compressed NFTs on Solana is economically feasible by several orders of magnitude compared to casting NFTs on any other network. Only on Solana can Helium migrate such large state blocks without any issues. Scott Sigel, Chief Operating Officer of the Helium Foundation, described the migration as "no issues, nothing to report. It's boring! That's exactly what we wanted with the migration."

Although migrating to Solana has many advantages, projects must consider the complexity and potential challenges involved in this transition, including compatibility issues, community consensus, and the technical aspects of the migration process. This is a daunting task for Helium, requiring careful consideration and a thorough migration process. Helium outlines the scale of this work in their documentation and migration guide. Nevertheless, Helium's migration has been a huge success, benefiting the Helium community greatly.

Helium's migration to Solana is not an isolated event - yes, Helium's migration is the first of its kind and a stunning technological feat, but blockchain projects are choosing Solana.

For example, Maker is a complete Ethereum project. Maker is an Ethereum token that describes itself as a "utility token, governance token, and recapitalization resource for the Maker system." Maker aims to unleash the potential of decentralized finance by establishing an inclusive platform called the Maker platform to achieve economic empowerment and equal access to global financial markets. The Maker platform consists of MakerDAO "for managing the Maker project" and Maker Protocol "for building and promoting DAI, the world's first fair currency and leading decentralized stablecoin."

The founder of Maker, Rune Christensen, caused quite a stir on Twitter in September when he proposed using a branch of the Solana codebase to start developing the Maker application chain:

Source: Rune Christensen's Twitter

Given these developments, it is clear that Solana is becoming an increasingly popular choice for mature blockchain projects seeking to improve operational efficiency, scalability, and user experience. These developments highlight Solana's reputation as a blockchain that can meet the diverse needs of established projects.

Eclipse: Why the new EVM solution chooses Solana

Whether you are an existing blockchain project (such as Helium) or a traditional enterprise seeking to explore the benefits of blockchain (such as Visa), Solana is the perfect solution. Offering innovative features such as parallel processing and state compression in a single environment is unique to Solana.

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