SOL is a coin of SPL protocol. Solana is a relatively new player in the cryptocurrency arena, but it has already gained strength. Since its launch in March 2020 the Solana crypto, SOL, went from $0.5 to over $30.
The SOL crypto can be used within the Solana ecosystem: users stake tokens to transactions’ validators and then receive rewards for their input, and pay transaction fees with SOL. This crypto can also be used in the decentralized apps built on Solana (for example, in Chainvote, a blockchain-based voting system where 1 vote equals 1 SOL).
Solana is a Spanish word meaning “sunny side”, and it is both a sentimental nod to happy times the project’s creators had on a San Diego beach of the same name and a reflection of this project’s core idea — transactions being processed at the speed of light. Anatoly Yakovenko, Greg Fitzgerald, Raj Gokal, and Stephen Akridge found an elegant solution to the problem Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered from, increasing the transaction speed in the blockchain enough to compete with giants like Visa. It took three years from the initial whitepaper about Proof of History in November 2017 to the official release in March 2020. What is their secret? It takes a lot of time for computers to establish a trustworthy link with each other. So, Anatoly Yakovenko came up with an idea: what if there was one simple thing computers had to agree on in order to start trusting each other? And that thing was their internal clock (in order for two computers to trust each other, they need to agree on something, and comparing their clocks turns out to be a simple solution). In practice, it reduces the time it takes to validate the order in which transactions are made, and, as a result, users get their funds significantly faster.
Do you need SOL coins to pay transaction fees or use them within the Solana ecosystem? Then SimpleSwap has you covered, just follow the instructions below:
Thank you for reading our guide on Solana! Make sure to check out our articles about other cryptocurrencies.