Over time, the rapid expansion greeting the crypto industry has continued to bring Solana and Cardano blockchains into the limelight. Despite the growing competition in the industry, both Cardano and Solana have overtly remained at the vanguard of web3 development. Additionally, Solana and Cardano avail high-performance blockchain supports to builders of crypto projects and applications. This means both are designed to solve the same problem. This thus raise arguments about Solana vs Cardano in respect to their speed, scalability, security, and a host of others. Now, this article shall critically do the Solana vs Cardano comparison by examining their functionalities, projects, similarities, and differences to make builders discern which is best for them.
Solana: Overview
According to reports, the functionality of Solana blockchain appears similar to that of Ethereum. Notably, the Solana blockchain manifested to avail a series of rapid transactional operations. It possesses a lofty bandwidth which thus makes the network very rapid and grossly consistent. According to a Solana review, which conveyed a detailed description of the blockchain, it possesses the ability to process millions of transactions per second without hindrance.
Additionally, the blockchain possesses a mechanism which enables the processing of about 710 thousand transactions per second, particularly on a normal gigabyte platform. As for a 40 gigabit standard, the blockchain do about 28.4 million transactions per second.
Also, the solana blockchain employs a consensus technique, identified as proof-of-history, which enhances the speed of all incurred transactions. The only restraint attached to this blockchain usually manifest from hardwares. However, the proof-of-history further offer a timestamp to every processed transactions and facilitates the verification of information rapidly.
Worth noting that the Solana blockchain services are highly cost-effective. Even moments when transaction costs of some other blockchains get hiked, Solana’s cost remained unchanged and inexpensive. Accordingly, the transaction fees incurred on the net amount to an average of US$0.00025. The low-cost incurable on Solana, as well as its complete visibility, facilitates the interests of investors on the blockchain. Coupled with its massive bandwidth, the Solana blockchain further enjoys over 5 million non-fungible tokens. As of now, it also possesses a massive value pegged into DeFi-based programmes and amounting to over US$11 billion. Despite the prospects attached to the network, its reliability remains questionable. This is because the blockchain had, on many occasions, become completely offline or gone down.
Solana’s native token
Solana has a native token, known as SOL or SPL token. Reportedly, the token reward holders with governance right in the ecosystem. This means holders of SOL are usually involved in the network’s decision-making processes. More so, the token is usually deployed in paying for transactions done on the network. As of the time of filing this article, SOL has a trading value of $41.31 and a $1,068,078,753 24-hour trading volume. More so, the token has a circulating supply of 350 million SOL coins and a total supply of 508 million.
Cardano: Overview
According to findings, Cardano functions as a decentralized proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. The blockchain possesses remarkable scalability, interoperability, and a host of other laudable features. Reportedly, the Cardano blockchain as a third-generation network serves as an alternative to Ethereum. Additionally, it runs on a consensus mechanism called Ouroboros. Notably, the Cardano foundation designed the consensus mechanism to lessen the cost implications of energy needed for proof-of-work mining. It eliminates the burden some computing resources usable by the proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm.
The development itinerary of Cardano manifested in five stages. As revealed, each of the stages are named after renowned mathematicians and scientists. They include Byron, Shelley, Goguen, Basho, and Voltaire. Worth noting that Cardano, in the past year, executed smart contract support to enhance its scalability and use cases for subscribers. As revealed, this development paved the way for subscribers to initiate smart contracts and NFTs and administrate numerous assets.
Aided by cryptographic mechanism and combinatorics, Cardano sustains a highly reliable and efficient network of nodes. These nodes consequently avail a standard network with remarkable scalability to aid the operations of users.
Cardano’s native token
Just like Solana, Cardano possesses a native token, identified as ADA. The network uses the native token to reward participants or nodes in the blockchain’s staking pool. Becoming a node mandates the user to stake a specific amount of the native token. Additionally, ADA serves as a medium of payment made for computational gas fees on the network. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, ADA cannot be mined but tends to be bought via a crypto exchange. As of the time of writing this article, ADA has a $0.501572 trading value, coupled with a 24-hour trading volume of $720,313,246. Also, it possesses a circulating supply of 34 billion ADA coins and a total supply of 45 billion.
Projects: Solana vs Cardano
In a bid to further initiate the Solana versus Cardano comparison, it is necessary to highlight some of the distinctive projects running on them. As of today, there are thousands of projects running on the Solana and Cardano blockchains. As for Solana, some of its projects include Parrot Protocol, Mango Market, Larix, Solfarm, Raydium, Serum DEX, Mercurial Finance, and many others.
Similarly, some of the projects running on Cardano include, Ardana, Meld, Empowa, World Mobile Token, Rayswap, Liqwid finance, Adax, and others.
Deficiencies: Solana vs Cardano
Notably, the Solana vs cardano comparison has grossly necessitated the need to highlight their various deficiencies or shortcomings. Indeed, both blockchains are enveloped with deficiencies which will be analyzed accordingly.
Solana’s deficiencies
With good faith, Alan Yu, Anatoly Yakovenko, Greg Fitzgerald, Raj Gokal, and Stephen Akridge developed Solana to be a fast, scalable blockchain. As expected, the blockchain has established itself as one of the quickest and safest networks in the industry. By its capacity, Solana block time often hovers beneath 1000 microseconds with about 1,100 validators across the globe. There have been arguments against the Solana blockchain, which is quite different from Cardano. One of the prominent arguments against Solana is that its more centralized in nature.
This argument emanated against Solana because it introduced the Proof-Of-History. Adopting this consensus mechanism has helped the blockchain achieve its desire to offer swift transactions. Yet, critics believe the PoH is more centralized, thus, making Solana appear more like a centralized platform. The blockchain, like others in the cryptocurrency industry, still claims to be decentralized. The PoH incorporates time into the blockchain with the ambition to minimize the burden on the network nodes while refining blocks. It has helped the blockchain gain scalability while offering cheap transaction fees. The need to adopt a central timezone to process transactions sparked discontent among critics.
Low validators in Solana
Also, another notable argument against Solana is the low number of Validators. Currently, there are less than 1,2000 validators in the ecosystem. The blockchain has been compared to Ethereum, notably gaining the nick as Ethereum Killer. Despite dubbing the nick, the blockchain has failed to live up to that expectation. Though an emerging ecosystem compared to Ethereum yet, the latter has more dApps and projects on it than Solana. Currently, Solana has 350 dApps on it compared to Ethereum’s 3,000. Another shortcoming of the Solana Blockchain is that many of its features are yet to manifest. The team once reveal that these features will emerge on the Mainnet Beta. Making the network struggle with the fulfillment of some of the features it promised during commercials.
Cardano’s deficiency
Cardano’s primary deficiency is in how it implements its proof-of-stake, though token holders are supposed to vote during proposals. However, the ecosystem doesn’t implement this fully. Instead, it just adds the difference between a lead to the user account if such user is ahead by a certain percentage. Another significant weakness against Cardano is its attempts to overtake Ethereum. As stated previously, its losing the battle against Ethereum, which has been a disadvantage against it. Solana is doing well in this regard compared to Cardano.
Additionally, the ADA token of Cardano is still struggling to gain a stabilized value despite being in existence for a while. The value of the token is hanging on how well the ecosystem fare in the future. Notable argument against Cardano evolves around how it makes the ecosystem vulnerable to attacks and how it implements its proof-of-stake mechanism.
Solana vs Cardano: Similarities
In a bid to better do Solana vs Cardano comparison, it is important to consider their existing similarities. Notably, one of the similarities between Cardano and Solana is that they offer cheap transaction fees. Significantly, Cardano and Solana charge less to process transactions. Cardano also tends to offer scalability, most especially to proffer major challenges faced by Ethereum and Bitcoin. Like Solana, Cardano is struggling to address and meet up with this expectation effectively. The Ouroboros blockchain of Cardano is the brainwork of reputable cybersecurity innovators, making the protocol one of the most secured. Also, it serves as an open-source system that allows the development of applications and other decentralized systems.
Remarkable, just like Solana, Cardano has done well in Improving scalability through the Cardano Clearing Level (CSL). The CSL as a clearing unit aids users in trading the ADA token of Cardano seamlessly with low transaction fees. However, Cardano is flashing glimpses of having the capacity to rise above the intense competition in the cryptocurrency space. There are positive signs about Cardano regarding its sustainability and commitment to a long-term existence.
Experts are skeptical about Solana and its tendency to compete impressively in the market. For Cardano, the reverse has been the case because it adopted the proof-of-stake. With the proof-of-stake, validators won’t have to set up energy-consuming mining outfits to keep the protocol intact. Through the PoS, Cardano now allows the usage of tokens to validate transactions.
Solana vs Cardano: Differences
The existing differences enveloped in Cardano vs Solana is noticeable despite sharing similarities in what they offer. First, Solana employs the proof-of-history consensus mechanism, which makes critics deem it a centralized ecosystem while Cardano uses the proof-of-stake, though the proof-of history originated from the proof-of-stake. Yet, they have diverse characteristics that make them distinctive.
Remarkably a major difference in Solana vs Cardano is their blockchain. Solana has a blockchain that hosts Solana native token, SOL, and other digital tokens while Cardano is based on the Ouroboros blockchain, and its native token is ADA. One prominent feature distinguishing Cardano from Solana is how Cardano sees itself as an upgrade to Ethereum. Cardano, founded by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum, developed certain features for Cardano that are directly similar to Ethereum.
Considering their weaknesses and strengths, it’s fair to conclude that the Solana vs Cardano argument is an endless battle. This is due to the diverse advantages they both share over one another. It’s imperative to admit that proper utilization of Solana and Cardano to their strengths will bring the desired result. Therefore, developers are free to select the best one to pick in other to build their project.
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