Solana, one of the world’s newest blockchains, debuted in 2019, significantly later than the rest of the cryptocurrencies. Many analysts considered it as a potential “Ethereum Killer” due to its unique consensus method, transaction speeds, and energy efficiency.
Is it, however, an environmentally friendly blockchain?
Solana Coin is very environmentally friendly. It does not require energy to validate transactions because it is a decentralised Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency.
Instead of energy-intensive mining that hurts the environment, the proof-of-stake methodology maintains the Solana network safe while still being environmentally friendly.
It is so energy-efficient that a single Solana transaction consumes only 0.00051 kWh (1837 Joules). Only Google comes close, with a single search on their engine using only 1080 Joules. Isn’t it fascinating to know that one Solana transaction is far more environmentally friendly than two Google searches?
Despite the Solana network’s present low energy use, the Solana Foundation is currently working to make it more carbon neutral.
Innovative features like proof-of-history and parallel processing on the Solana blockchain make it further energy-efficient and eco-friendly.
In addition, the Solana Foundation vowed to keep it carbon neutral until 2022 and beyond while remaining transparent about its energy consumption.
Aside from that, the Foundation is involved in other activities that help to reduce global carbon emissions.
They currently fund the permanent destruction of HFC and CFC refrigerants, which are 10,000 times more harmful to the environment than CO2. This also provides people with meaningful work while lowering overall greenhouse gas emissions.Another example is their collaboration with Watershed, which assists other businesses in measuring, reducing, removing, and reporting their carbon status in order to help combat climate change.
What Is Solana Used for?
It promises to fix two basic flaws ailing the crypto industry, in addition to providing another cryptocurrency choice for people to trade with in the market. Scalability and rapidity.
It employs Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance to eliminate the need for nodes to interact in real-time in order for transactions to take place.
It validates transactions significantly faster and more efficiently when combined with “Gulf Stream” technology. This also enables for over 50,000 transactions per second on the network, which solves the speed issue.
It employs the Turbine Block Propagation Protocol to address the scalability issue.
This feature divides data into little chunks that are significantly easier to send across the network.
As a result, it does not require layer-two solutions to scale its usage. As a result, gas fees on the it’s network are significantly reduced.
What is the Environmental Impact of Solana?
It is nearly carbon neutral. That means it has a favourable environmental impact.
Combine it with the projects that the Solana Foundation is now funding to further cut carbon emissions, and you have one of the world’s most influential blockchain companies.
What are the Benefits of Solana?
There are various advantages of using Solana to construct dApps, smart contracts, and transacts.
Let’s have a look at them:
1. Energy Efficient
As previously said, It is likely the most energy-efficient cryptocurrency.
It is better for the environment thanks to cutting-edge Proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-History models, as well as other off-chain efforts from the Solana Foundation.
2.Speed
It can mine a block in 400ms and process over 50,000 Transactions Per Second (TPS).
Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance, Gulf Stream Technology, and Turbine Block Propagation Protocol all contributed to this.
3.Cost effectiveness
Solana accomplishes all of this while keeping gas prices significantly lower than industry averages. As a result, transactions on the Solana network are extremely cheap.
4.There is no Mempool problem.
A mempool is a storage area for completed transactions before they are merged into the blockchain.
Mempools are rather common in other blockchains, but not in Solana. When a transaction is executed, it is virtually instantly added to the blockchain, eliminating mempools.
5.Simple to programme
It employs Rust, an easy-to-learn and-use programming language. On It’s ecosystem, you may create games, applications, and even other blockchains.
Is Solana a Good Green Bitcoin Alternative?
It is, indeed as it utilises up to 99.9% less energy per transaction than Bitcoin. It also employs a Proof-of-stake mining technique that requires far less hardware than Bitcoin.
The Environmental Impact of Solana vs. Ethereum
In comparison to Solana, Ethereum has a significant environmental impact. A single Solana transaction uses approximately 1900 Joules, whereas an Ethereum transaction uses 693 Million Joules.
Although Ethereum 2.0 is expected to reduce that to 126 000 Joules, it is still a long way from the energy reductions Solana achieves.
Last Thoughts
It is so energy-efficient that it can compete with Google in terms of carbon neutrality. This demonstrates how ground-breaking Solana’s approach to cryptocurrencies is.
