INTRODUCTION.
1.Explain in detail Solana's PoH
Before we take a look at what the Solana’s PoH is all about, lets take a look at what Solana itself is all about.
What is Solana?
Solana is an open source of the third generation which was developed by Anatoly Yakovenko in the year 2017. Solana’s main net was eventually launched in the year 2020 after developments were made.
Solana was developed to demonstrate that, the performance of bottleneck is eliminated when series of existing algorithm are mixed into the blockchain. With the aim of making it extremely fast and scalable blockchain. Increasing the blockchains speed in terms of transactions and others.
With the same aim as other blockchain technologies, the Solana works totally different from all of them. To be totally unique from the others, it uses the latest technology in its operations making its blockchain fast and more scalable.
Solana's PoH.
Unlike other blockchain technologies that uses Proof of Stake, Proof of Work, and Proof of Brain, Solana uses the Proof of History which is a new consensus developed. This Proof of History can create a record of transactions in order to prove that a transaction occurred at a particular time.
For these records to be done, Solana uses a “verifiable delay function” algorithm which is a very high frequency and requires a certain number of steps to be done in order to be able to evaluate them. Every transaction that occurs has been evaluated and assigned a special hash code which is verifiable publicly. This will make room for everyone to know each and every transaction that will occur or has already occurred on the Solana Network.
2. Describe at least 2 use cases of Solana.
There are several use cases or projects built on the solana blockchain, some of them include Raydium, Orca, Hedgehog Markets, Maps.me, Aleph.im, The Media Network, SolFarm, Oxygen, Anchor, Step.Finance etc.
For the sack of this task, I will like to talk on just these two;
Maps.me
One use case of the Solana blockchain is Maps.me as I already made mention of in the above examples. It is actually a project that is able to access maps offline with the use of OpenStreetMapa Data. It is a mobile app project and can be found on both Apple Store and Playstore. It is widely used and is among one of the top app used with over 140 million users world wide. There is recent integration of Decentralized Finance features into the mobile app, which allows users to enjoy both rewards and discounts Recent news show that the app in integrated some features such as payments, fund transfers,asset managements and accommodation bookings since it is mostly used by travelers. This will greatly assist them in some basic staffs like this.
The Media Network
This is also another open source on the Solana blockchain which is decentralized. It is also has a censorship-resistant live streaming hosting protocol. Decentralized Peer-to-Peer bandwidth approach is offered to users in order to be able to participate and serve content without any trust assumptions or even pre authentication requirements. When users participate by contributing their bandwith, they earn a fixed supply token minted on the Solanas Blockchain as a Media Reward.
3. Explain SOLA token in detail
SOLA Token (SOLA) I will say is just a part or portion of the Solana Blockchain. It is Solana’s native token which gives right to every holder to participate in the decisions of the solatoken.net platform or ecosystem. This means the SOLA Token give some authority or power to every holder. Numerous features are integrated into the platform, it is also a decentralized ecosystem. Unfortunately, this token can only be traded on it Decentralized exchange platform. This is mainly because it has not been listed on other decentralized platforms and also not listed on the https://coinmarketcap.com.
- Screenshot from Coingecko website....
- Chart showing Solana Token from coingecko..
As at now there are 1,893 SOLA Token holders on the platform. Fortunately we can find some informations about our native token of Solana Blockchain on some other exchange platforms. Some of this exchange platforms includes coingecko, coinpaprika.com etc. Above are some informations of the solana token in the screenshots.
The SOLA Token is ranked 1810 with a total market cap of $1.664.565. A circulating supply of 27.153.077 Sola. A trading volume of $54.261. The tokens current price is $0,058806.
4. When did Solana Blockchain see its operations disrupted? Why?
Unfortunately, there was a disruption of the Solana Blockchain network server which occurred on 14Th of September 2021. This disruption affected all of the other networks that operates on the Solana’s blockchain. This was due to the shutdown of Solana’s main network on which all other Solana networks also operates on.
From management, it was as a result of increased transaction loads which eventually got to its peak at a point of 400,000 TPS (Transactions Per Second). They further indicated that it might be caused by bot. That people use bots in making transactions to participate in issuance of the Grape Protocol (GRAPE). These high increased transactions flooded the transaction processing queue. The lack of prioritization of network critical messaging was also another major factor said the management.
All this informations where provided on the official twitter channel of SOL
Looking at this, we can clearly say that the transactions on the Solana blockchain should not exceed 400,000 TPS. Under normal circumstances, there should be roughly 65,000 TPS on the blockchain net, making room for the remaining to serve as
5. Check the last block generated in Solana and make an approximate calculation how many blocks per second have been generated in Solana, taking into account from the initial block to the current block? Explain your answer and show a screenshot.
In order to check the last block generated in Solana blockchain click on this link https://explorer.solana.com and below is a screenshot of the outcome. It is the block explorer link which gives access to any individual to display the details or information about a particular block.
Exploring Sola Explorer
In finding the last block and other information about Solana blockchain, we need to visit the Solana explorer.
At the time of performing my homework task the last block on the Solana blockchain was 99,413,635 at Oct 2, 2021 at 14:38:45 GMT+1 or Oct 2, 2021 at 13:38:45 GMT with 1543 processed transactions and 1460 successful transactions.
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Next block I checked was the Block 1 or Genesis block of the Solana network. I entered 01 in search box and the first block of the network appears.
The first block has a total of 4 processed transactions and 0 successful transactions. To find the timestamp for this block 1 we have select the first transaction generated by the block 1. It can be seen that the first block was generated on Mar 16, 2020 at 14:30:51 Greenwich Mean Time.
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For the calculation of the time taken to generate each block by the Solana blockchain, we have to know the timestamp for the Solana genesis block and timestamp for the last block.
First block time Mar 16, 2020 at 14:30:51 Greenwich Mean Time. But 14:30:51 is also 02:30:51pm GMT.
Last block timestamp Oct 2, 2021 at 13:38:45 GMT which can also be Oct 2, 2021 at 01:38:45pm GMT.
564 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes and 54 seconds time elapsed.
1 hour is 3600 seconds
1 day has 24 hours
24x3600= 86400 seconds per day
Days to seconds
564 x 86400 = 48,729,600
hours to seconds
23 x 3600= 82,800
Minutes to seconds
7 x 60 = 420
The total number of seconds taken to generate the last block 99,413,635 is 48,812,874
For the time taken to create each block on the Solana blockchain we have to divide the seconds elapsed by the last block.
48,812,874/99,413,635 = 0.49100784 ~ 0.5
This confirm that the Solana blockchain takes about 0.5 seconds to create every block.
CONCLUSION
The Solana blockchain is indeed one of a kind. Looking some of the blocks on blockexplorer tells it all. The fastness and scalability of this blockchain is remarkable compared to the other blockchain.
Also there are other great projects on the blockchain which I will recommend for anyone interested in experiencing some amazing blockchain features.
I will like to say a very big thank you to our own honorable Prof. @pelon53 for such an educative lectures not forgetting steemit cryptoacademy community for making this possible.
Thank You..