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As noted in 2022, Solana (SOL) has experienced many problems. The altcoin network became known for its outages, which frustrated the cryptocurrency investor who saw a blockchain needing repair in addition to a network with a certain level of centralization.
Those were not the only problems. Like the other altcoins, SOL experienced firm market corrections but with an aggravating factor: FTX. The former CEO of the failed crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), being a big advocate of the altcoin, purchased a lot of it, and this resulted in Solana’s association with one of the biggest scandals in the blockchain industry.
However, 2023 is here, and things seem to be going well for the altcoin. The SOL token has been one of the standouts with an impressive 63% rise in the first 11 days of the year. No doubt the altcoin meme Bonk (BONK), launched on Solana’s network, contributed to this.
But a project that aims to be one of the leaders of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) cannot be sustained by an altcoin meme forever. For this reason, this article will cover what Anatoly Yakovenko, cofounder of Solana, sees as one of the main changes for crypto in 2023.
Solana’s network
Of course, Solana’s most critical problem cannot be left out of our discussion. Among the chaos seen on the altcoin's blockchain, some of it arose from novelties and others from the superb usability of the network. Regardless of the reason, that shook investor confidence. According to Yakovenko, many of the problems have been resolved.
One of the factors that may help improve the network landscape is stake-weighted QoS. This mode is already active on mainnet-beta, and the co-founder of the “Ethereum killer” has stated that it will prevent unstaked nodes or low-stake nodes from spamming everyone else.
However, what catches the eye is the new validator developed by Jump, Firedancer. Firedancer is the second validator client that allows people to run their validators using one of two software packages.
Why is this important? Besides Ethereum, Solana would be the only altcoin in the smart contract world with more than one independent validator.
Therefore, if a bug takes down one of the clients, Solana users would have no problem with a non-functional network because the other client would work perfectly. At least, that is what is expected for the future of the altcoin.
Regarding SOL’s network, Yakovenko is also excited about the programming function in the crypto blockchain. One of the new features highlighted by the entrepreneur is a new token standard called Token-22.
Its functionality will be focused on the development of new applications. An example is the collection of royalties on transfers.
But this does not mean that more improvements to programmability will not be seen, and Yakovenko has put that responsibility on the developers of the smart contract platform. He expects that, by 2024, it will be much easier to program and audit Solana’s blockchain.
These developments are essential to helping crypto investors trust Ethereum's competitor again. With a stable and easy-to-develop network, Solana may be able to seek its place in the top 10 again.
Alex Dovbnya
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov