The Solana Foundation has published the first report on the level of decentralization of its Blockchain network. The “Nakamoto coefficient” of the network is low, but the Foundation claims that this is due to the use of the PoS method.
The Solana Foundation (SOL) has published the first report on the level of decentralization of its Blockchain network.
Solana was one of the most outstanding crypto projects in 2021. Its Blockchain became the home of several protocols from the most varied segments of the industry, especially Web 3.0 and NFT, where it came to threaten the strong dominance of Ethereum (ETH). Due to this, its native token has accumulated an appreciation of approximately 20,000% in the year.
On the other hand, this year has not seen the same success. In addition to the sharp falls in the market, which caused SOL to collapse 80% from its maximum, its network was the target of several hacker attacks, some of which caused millions in losses.
Recurring incidents and problems raise questions about the level of security and decentralization of the Blockchain. In response, the Solana Foundation published a new report on its ecosystem and community of validators.
Solana and its Validators
According to the report, the Solana network currently has more than 3,400 validators, spread across six continents. They play an “essential role in maintaining a resilient, distributed, and credibly neutral network,” being responsible for verifying transactions made by users and storing their records in their Blockchain ledger.
All these validators are classified into consensus nodes and RPC nodes. While the former create and propose new blocks to the network after the blocks have been verified, RPC validators provide an “application gateway” for specific projects, in addition to performing the same functions as consensus nodes.
Currently, the “Nakamoto coefficient,” a metric used to report the minimum number of validators needed to compromise the network, is 31.
The Solana Foundation argues that this low ratio is due to its Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) mechanism, which puts greater leverage on users who stake their SOL tokens.
Coincarp data shows that there are more than 9 million SOL holders, with just 100 users holding more than 30% of the total asset supply. Despite this high circulation, none of the major node operators come close to exceeding the 33% active participation required to corrupt the network.
Improvements are in the Air
In order to further increase the decentralization of its network, the Solana Foundation announced a partnership with Jump Crypto, a company specializing in infrastructure for Web 3.0; they plan to create a new validator client which will help prevent one group of validators from taking over, as well as ensure greater stability for the network as a whole.
Jump Crypto also notes that it will “propose significant updates to Solana’s open source core software.” A company representative of Decrypt pointed out that Solana’s “performance is not currently limited by hardware, but by software inefficiencies” and that improvements need to be made to increase its scalability.
“By adding more top contributors like Jump Crypto, the network can maintain its status as the best place to build on Web 3.0, while scaling to billions of users,” said Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.
By Audy Castaneda
