【001】One Coin, One Conversation: Solana (SOL) — The Rise and Challenges of an Efficient Public Blockchain

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From a Qualcomm engineer to a blockchain leader, Anatoly Yakovenko’s journey began with inspiration from a cup of coffee and a bottle of beer, sparking the legendary rise of Solana.

In the world of cryptocurrency, new stories unfold every day. As the opening piece of the “One Coin, One Conversation” column, today we focus on Solana (SOL) — a public blockchain that dominates the space with its astonishing speed and rapidly expanding ecosystem.

From the founder’s unique background to its ambitious goal of solving the blockchain “impossible triangle,” and recent impressive on-chain activity, Solana’s development is filled with technological breakthroughs and ecological prosperity.

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01 Origin Story: From Caffeine Inspiration to Gigabit-Scale Blockchain

The story of Solana’s birth is quite unique in the crypto world. Founder Anatoly Yakovenko started his career at Qualcomm, where he spent over a decade working on mobile devices and operating systems.

This experience gave him deep insights into high-performance computing and network architecture, laying the foundation for later creating Solana.

In 2017, at a café called Soleil in San Francisco, Anatoly had a sudden flash of inspiration after drinking two coffees and a bottle of beer, unable to sleep at 4 a.m. This moment sparked his idea for a new Proof of History (PoH) mechanism.

Six months later, he pitched this concept to Sam Russo at a bar called Slow, and thus the legend of Solana began.

Born in the Soviet Union, Anatoly emigrated to the U.S. with his parents after the Soviet dissolution and grew up in Chicago. Witnessing firsthand how technology can change society, he also deeply understands the flaws of centralized systems. These experiences shaped his vision for a decentralized future.

02 Technical Highlights: Breaking the “Impossible Triangle” of Blockchain

Solana’s core mission is to solve the well-known “scalability trilemma” in blockchain — how to achieve high throughput while maintaining decentralization and security.

Compared to other public chains, Solana employs a series of innovative technologies:

· Proof of History (PoH): Solana’s core innovation, serving as a clock mechanism that timestamps transactions, greatly improving network efficiency.
· Parallel Processing: Supports thousands of smart contracts running simultaneously, avoiding network congestion.
· Ultra-fast Transactions: Theoretically capable of processing 65,000 transactions per second, with confirmation times as low as 400 milliseconds. In comparison, Ethereum processes about 15-20 transactions per second, with confirmation times taking minutes.

These technological advantages make Solana highly attractive for developers building high-performance applications, especially those requiring real-time interactions and fast execution of decentralized apps.

03 Ecosystem: From DeFi to Meme Coins, a Comprehensive Layout

After years of development, Solana has built a large and diverse ecosystem spanning decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, gaming, and decentralized social platforms.

In DeFi, Solana hosts several leading decentralized exchanges such as Serum, Raydium, and Orca, offering fast and low-cost trading experiences.

The most explosive growth in the Solana ecosystem, however, comes from Meme coins. Anatoly Yakovenko revealed that Solana produces 20,000 to 50,000 new Meme coins daily, with peak periods exceeding 100,000.

This incredible level of creation showcases the network’s high throughput capacity and community vitality.

Additionally, Solana is actively expanding into hardware, launching the Saga smartphone designed specifically for crypto users. Anatoly believes that the current internet is dominated by “sandbox” models from giants like Apple and Google, and that crypto assets, due to their scarcity, can break this monopoly.

He envisions creating devices and app stores tailored for crypto users, charging fees far lower than traditional platforms.

04 Recent Developments: Public Chain Activity Remains Top

According to the latest data, Solana ranks first in active blockchain activity, with 15.87 million active addresses over the past 7 days, surpassing competitors like Tron and BNB Chain.

This data demonstrates the strong vitality and user engagement within the Solana ecosystem.

In a recent interview, Solana’s founder Anatoly shared his observations on industry cycles. He proposed an evolution pattern: “Punk, Hoodie, Suit”:

Cryptocurrency was initially pioneered by rebellious tech geeks (punks), then driven towards commercialization by hoodie-wearing entrepreneurs, and finally fully taken over by suit-wearing capital.

He believes we are currently in a delicate transitional phase from hoodie to suit.

05 Future Outlook: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

Looking forward, Solana faces multiple opportunities and challenges.

In Anatoly’s view, the current market’s perception of stablecoins is both overly focused and severely underestimated. He foresees that if the global circulation of stablecoins reaches $5 trillion, it would mean the dollar has fully digitized, becoming a daily currency in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

This trend could have profound impacts on high-performance public chains like Solana.

At the same time, Solana is actively exploring integration with artificial intelligence. Anatoly pointed out that AI is closer to tangible products rather than social movements, while crypto is a true social movement.

This positioning hints at future directions — not just as a technology platform, but as a catalyst for societal change.

However, Solana also faces significant hurdles. Network congestion issues are not fully resolved, and past network outages have raised doubts about its stability.

Moreover, as competitors optimize their performance, Solana must continue innovating technologically to maintain its market position.

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The future of Solana seems to align with the vision its founder described: when stablecoins are backed by real assets like government bonds, it could revolutionize traditional finance. In this future, with its high-speed capabilities, Solana could become a key infrastructure in this transformative era.