Key Competences
Solana Blockchain Technology
The choice of Solana as the underlying blockchain for the Stream Protocol's ecosystem is driven by its unmatched speed, efficiency, and low transaction fees, making it an ideal solution for the protocol's goals and use cases.
Speed and Efficiency: Solana's Proof-of-History protocol allows for lightning-fast transaction confirmations, processing an impressive 50,000 to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS). This throughput is significantly higher compared to other blockchain networks like Ethereum or Cardano, which process a fraction of the TPS. This high transaction speed ensures that users experience seamless and near-instantaneous payment transactions on the StreamPay™ mobile application.
Low Transaction Fees: Solana's efficient design and consensus mechanism result in minimal transaction costs. On average, the cost of a transaction on the Solana blockchain is as low as $0.0005, making it economically viable for both small and large-scale transactions. This is a significant advantage over other blockchain alternatives, such as Ethereum, which often incurs much higher transaction fees, especially during periods of network congestion.
Scalability: Solana's high TPS and low fees make it highly scalable, enabling the Stream Protocol to accommodate a large number of users and transactions without compromising performance. This scalability is crucial for the Stream Protocol's goal of providing inclusive financial services to users worldwide, including the unbanked and underbanked populations.
Decentralization and Transparency: Solana's decentralized nature ensures that user data is recorded on a transparent and secure ledger, making it accessible to users while protecting their privacy. The Stream Protocol ecosystem built on Solana allows for a decentralized governance model, enabling community-driven development and decision-making.
Seamless User Experience: Solana's fast blocktime of 400-500 milliseconds ensures that users of the StreamPay™ mobile application experience a seamless payment process with no intermediaries. The near-instant confirmation of transactions and low fees contribute to an efficient and user-friendly payment experience.
In comparison to traditional financial networks like Visa, Solana's transaction processing speed and cost are highly competitive. It provides an excellent foundation for the Stream Protocol to offer a wide range of financial services at a fraction of the cost and with significantly improved efficiency compared to traditional banking systems and other blockchain networks.
Overall, Solana's speed, efficiency, low fees, and scalability make it the optimal choice for powering the Stream Protocol's financial ecosystem. It aligns with the protocol's vision of providing accessible and secure financial services, revolutionizing the traditional financial landscape, and driving global financial transformation.
Key variable comparison:
Solana
400-500ms
$0.00025
2-3s
50,0000
1750
Ethereum
15s
$14.44
~5m
17,2
335690
Ripple
4s
$1.08
3-5s
1500
Stellar
4-5s
$0.40
3-5s
1000
Energy Efficient
The Solana network, a high-performance, low-impact blockchain, is designed to scale effectively for global adoption. In a March 2022 review of the Solana network’s energy impact, the Solana Foundation reports that average per-validator emissions shrank, while the overall network and its total emissions grew by 1.5 percent.
Last year, the Solana Foundation endeavored to learn, “How big is Solana’s energy footprint, actually?” In May 2021, it reached out to Robert Murphy, an independent expert in energy and crypto and asked him to pin down the environmental impact of transactions on the network. Transactions are the fundamental building blocks of Solana: Buying an NFT, executing a trade, and other activities you can perform using Solana are all transactions.
The report on the Solana network’s energy impact was released in November 2021, which revealed how Solana’s energy usage compared to regular, everyday activities, as well as other blockchain networks. In this report, Murphy’s analysis highlighted three key takeaways:
Rising total emissions: As of the March 2022 report, the Solana network grew to 1,762 validators, up from 1,479 in December 2021. The estimated total emissions of the network grew to 2,976 tonne CO2 per year as a result, up from 2,524 in December 2021. The validator network will continue to expand over time in support of overall network strength and decentralization goals, but the resulting emissions will be mitigated through Solana’s evolving climate program.
Increasingly clean power:According to the most recent report, the Solana network used cleaner power on average, with carbon intensity falling to 198 g CO2 per kWh, from 201g CO2 per kWh in December 2021. What happened? New validators on the Solana network tend to draw from cleaner energy sources, and this trend is expected to continue when data center-specific decarbonization programs (e.g., on-site renewables, renewable energy credit purchases, etc.) are accounted for.
Extreme network efficiency. An average Solana transaction uses 2,707 Joules — or less energy than three Google searches. Although the average Solana transaction energy usage has gone up, it still remains well under the energy impact of proof-of-work blockchains such as Ethereum (equal to 287,305 Solana transactions ) and Bitcoin (equal to 2,738,710 Solana transactions).
Energy use per transaction, in Joules
Carbon intensity of electricity consumed
Total number of validators
Nakomoto coefficient
Solana, March 2022
2,707 J
198 g CO2 per kWh
1,762
20
Solana transactions use the same energy as about two Google searches, and the entire network is carbon neutral.
Activity
Energy Used, in Joules (J)
A single Google Search 1
1,080 J
A single Solana transaction
2,707 J
Minting one Solana NFT
10,828 J
Keeping an LED light bulb on for one hour 2
36,000 J
Using a fully-charged iPhone 13 on battery 3
44,676 J
Working for an hour with a computer and monitor 4
46,800 J
One eth2 transaction 5
126,000 J
Watching an hour of television on a 40 inch+ LCD TV 4
540,000 J
Playing one hour of a PlayStation 5 game 6
708,840 J
Running a refrigerator for one hour 4
810,000 J
One hour of central air conditioning 4
12,600,000 J
Using one gallon of gasoline 7
121,320,000 J
One Ethereum transaction 8
692,820,000 J
One Bitcoin transaction 9
6,995,592,000 J
In addition to monitoring the energy impact of the network, the Solana network has achieved carbon neutrality in 2021 through the Solana Foundation’s investment in refrigerant destruction — considered one of the highest impact ways to reduce carbon emissions — which it plans to continue through at least 2022. The Solana Foundation pledges a variety of tools to keep the network carbon neutral in the years to come to ensure that Solana remains the world’s most scalable, low-impact blockchain.
The Solana Foundation will continue to release periodic reports on the Solana network’s energy usage and take steps to minimize the ecosystem's environmental impact.
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