Blockchain Development: The Solana Ecosystem

In the race to become the ultimate DeFi network, the Solana ecosystem is emerging as a low-cost, high-speed competitor to Ethereum and others. These qualities, paired with peak composability, make the network a good alternative for both experienced developers and beginners looking to experiment with smart contracts and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). What is the Solana ecosystem and what are the most notable projects building on it? We will analyze the reason behind its success as well as its perspectives for future adoption.

What is the Solana Ecosystem?

Solana is the world's first web-scale, open-source blockchain protocol, that enables developers around the world to build decentralized applications (dApps) on its ecosystem. At present, Solana is capable of 50,000 TPS (transactions per second), making it the world’s fastest blockchain. Having the necessary security, censorship-resistance, and cost-efficiency required for world-class dApps, numerous developers and institutions are choosing to build on its ecosystem.

The Solana ecosystem refers to a suite of technologies that work synergistically with the protocol to boost its speed and scalability, and to a collection of dApps that are built on Solana’s open infrastructure. Anyone can start building on the ecosystem, thanks to its open protocol and suite of developer resources.

The ecosystem currently hosts about 500 dApps, but the network’s explosive growth indicates that this number is on a steady rise. Following the increased demand for DeFi (decentralized finance), Ethereum, the world's leading open network, was plagued by network congestion that led to high gas fees. This drove more developers to Solana’s lightning-fast layer-1 solution, thanks to its average transaction cost of $0.00025 and 429-millisecond block finality.

Programming languages

Rust, C, C++ are supported on the Solana blockchain to develop smart contracts. Programs are built and deployed on the Solana Runtime forever. Users can interact with those programs by sending instructions to the network via Solana APIs. Those programming languages are so widely used that every developer has to have at least basic knowledge of them.

SOL Coin

Here you can find important information regarding the Solana $SOL token.

• Ticker: SOL.
• Blockchain: Solana.
• Consensus: Proof of History (PoH).
• Consensus mechanism: Tower BFT.
• Token Type: Coin.
• Max Supply: 1,000,000,000 SOL.
• All-time high ATH: $258 (06/11/2021).
• All-time low ATL: $0.5 (11/05/2020).
• Exchanges: Binance, Huobi, Kucoin, Gate,     Coinbase, and FTX etc.

Solana Wallets

This paragraph will showcase some of the most popular DeFi wallets connected to the Solana ecosystem. If you are not familiar with DeFi wallets, then go ahead and check out our previous article on DeFi Wallets.

One of the most popular Solana wallets is the Phantom Wallet. We have actually reviewed this wallet before, but here's a short introduction of it:

Phantom is a DeFi wallet with built-in swap, staking, NFT display, and crypto management capabilities. It’s available on the Solana blockchain and will be expanding to Ethereum as well. This wallet is deemed the best Solana wallet out there. Users can use this wallet to participate in transactions that are based on Solana and to buy various cryptocurrencies and NFTs on NFT Marketplaces that support Phantom. The Phantom Wallet is non-custodial, meaning that users hold their private keys. Therefore, a lot of the Phantom Wallet security lies in the users’ hands and not a 3rd party provider or exchange. Additionally, users can visit the chrome extension store and download the Phantom browser extension. However, if Phantom is not the first choice, then Sollet is a very good alternative https://www.sollet.io.

Apart from Phantom, you can also find a full range of wallets available on the Solana network below:

Solflare

Solflare is another one of the ecosystem’s three most popular wallets. The non-custodial wallet is available for PC and Mac users as a browser extension, and as an app for smartphone users. Solflare is also user-experience-focused, enabling safe storage, transactions, token swaps and staking on the Solana ecosystem.

Sollet

Sollet is a web-based, open-source wallet for developers and advanced users of the Solana ecosystem. Sollet enables users to safely send and receive funds, as well as interact with the dApps on Solana. For beginner users looking for the best customer support, Sollet recommends using Phantom or Solflare instead.

Solana Tools

Solscan

Solscan - where you can view your transactions and other user transaction history.

Solana Beach

Solana Beach - explore validators, transactions, blocks, and activity on Serum.

Solana Explorer

The Solana Explorer allows you to look up transactions and accounts on the various Solana clusters.

Solana CLI

The Solana CLI is a tool that allows you to interact with the Solana blockchain via the command line.

BuildSpace

Build NFTs on Solana. Send your own custom NFT collection on Solana w/ Metaplex in a weekend from BuildSpace.

Metaplex

The core Metaplex documentation used to provide understanding and implementations for building with NFTs on Solana.

Solana Cookbook

The Solana Cookbook is a developer resource that provides the essential concepts and recipes for building applications on Solana.

Solana NFT Marketplaces

Wondering what is the best NFT Marketplace? It might just be Solanart! However, you will find a full list of native Solana NFT Marketplaces below:

1. DigitalEyes

DigitalEyes is Solana’s First Open NFT Marketplace where users can able to create, sell and buy Solana’s NFT. The top NFT collection of DigitalEyes is Aurory, Degenerate Ape Academy, Frakt, and Galactic Gecko Space Garage. DigitalEyes supported wallets are Phantom, Sollet, Solflare, Solong, Slope, and MathWallet. Also, DigitalEyes has a services fee of 0.99% of every successful NFT sale. Two additional fees are applied for the buyer of the NFT that is royalty fee set by the creator and the service fee.

2. Solanart

Solanart is the fact it is the largest NFT marketplace by volume when looking at the Solana blockchain. Competitors such as MagicEden are far behind and this is why Solanart has leverage to dictate how Solana-based NFTs can be traded. This argument is backed up by the quick and easy use of the Phantom wallet which provides swift access to users who wish to interact with the marketplace.

3. MagicEden

Magic Eden is the number one Solana NFT Marketplace where you can able to create, sell and buy NFT’s. They have a listing fee of 0% rather they take 2% on every transaction. Magic Eden Launchpad’s products and services aim to help creators mint their collections without any technical capability. Moreover, Magic Eden supports almost all Solana Wallets from Phantom, Slope, Sollet, Solflare, Clover, Ledger, Solong, and MathWallet. Magic Eden has a popular NFT collection ranging from OnlyDice, Stoned Ape Crew, and Baby Ape Social Club.

4. Solsea

Solsea claims to be the first NFT marketplace that enables creators to choose and embed copyright-licenses when they mint NFTs. Solsea benefits from the same low-cost, high-speed transactions as the rest of the Solana ecosystem. Solsea has undergone its biggest update yet, at the time of writing.

Ultimately, Solanart is the fact it is the largest NFT marketplace by volume when looking at the Solana blockchain. Competitors such as MagicEden are far behind and this is why Solanart has leverage to dictate how Solana-based NFTs can be traded. This argument is backed up by the quick and easy use of the Phantom wallet which provides swift access to users who wish to interact with the marketplace.

Solana NFT Games

Star Atlas

StarAtlas is a play-to-earn game with its blockchain-driven, massively multiplayer online metaverse built on the Solana ecosystem. The space-themed game has a dual token economy with ATLAS as the in-game currency and POLIS used as the governance token for the game’s DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) structure. Players are rewarded for their effort with ATLAS tokens and NFTs.

Star Atlas is building a true metaverse with an open economy, where players have absolute freedom and earn money playing. While the full game is still in development, a light version of Star Atlas has already been released.

Aurory

So what is Aurory? Aurory is a fantasy action play-to-earn Japanese RPG set in two futuristic worlds called Antik and Cryptos. The game includes PvE gameplay where players can meet mystical creatures called Nefties. There are also to include PvP content where users can face-off their in-game NFTs.

Aurory will allow players to collect NFTs and $AURY tokens. Aurory is slated to become one of the first AAA games on the Solana blockchain and this is backed up by game content previews and demos being released to the crypto community.

Battle of Guardians

Battle of Guardians (BOG) is another Solana Network game which involves multiplayer fighting in an epic multi-real universe with an expansive game world. BOG is PvP game developed on UNREAL ENGINE where players compete for prizes by defeating other opponents. The game features in-game currency ($BGS - $FP), marketplace and staking.

RaceFi

RaceFi is the first Solana ecosystem company to employ artificial intelligence and machine learning. Generating funds in RaceFi’s metaverse it is possible to participating in various ranked game modes or by owning in-game digital assets. Both PvP and PvE are available as possibilities are endless. Its NFT collection is expected to be worth more than 45 million USD and to be in fluctuation by July 2022.

Solana DeFi Projects

Serum

Serum is the Solana ecosystem’s non-custodial DEX (decentralized exchange), known for its high-speed order flow. What makes Serum stand out is its decentralized, highly scalable matching engine, enabling it to power an entire ecosystem of interconnected exchanges. Any dApp on the Solana ecosystem can connect and supply liquidity to Serum and receive the liquidity from all other dApps connected to the DEX. It also supports cross-chain asset swaps, stablecoins, and decentralized oracles.

Serum is on a quest to decentralize the entire DeFi stack of the Solana ecosystem, by making it faster, cheaper, and more robust. Serum’s symbiotic design is important for the Solana ecosystem and its native token SRM is gaining traction among DeFi enthusiasts - partly because it was developed by FTX and Alameda Research.

Raydium

Raydium is an AMM, short for the automated market maker, and an on-chain liquidity provider for Serum — the ecosystem’s exchange. Raydium is directly connected to Serum’s central limit order book and the liquidity providers also have access to the liquidity and order flow of Serum. In exchange for providing liquidity, Raydium gets a20% cut of the DEX fees.

Raydium and its native token $RAY are essential in bridging new projects with Serum and the Solana ecosystem. It can be used for liquidity farming, staking, and swapping tokens.

Mango Markets

MangoMarkets is an open-source trading, borrowing, and lending platform focused on maximizing capital efficiency — by offering the first fully on-chain perpetual futures order book and spot margin trading based on Serum. Mango offers the lowest fees in the Solana ecosystem.

Mango Markets has a unique risk engine, making every asset cross-collateralized and usable for collateral for opening leverage positions. Open interests, deposits, and collateral also earn interest, meaning that traders may earn interest on their open positions. The trading tool aims to merge the liquidity and usability of CeFi with the permissionless innovations of DeFi. Its native token, MNGO, is a governance token that grants holders voting rights in Mango Markets’ DAO governance structure.

Solana DAOs

What is a DAO? In short, a DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, is a system that allows people to govern themselves. Because its governance is decentralized, it operates more efficiently than traditional systems. At present, most DAOs are based and operate on the Ethereum Blockchain, however, there are other examples as well and we will be showcasing them from Solana's ecosystem.

Here is a list of the top three most interesting DAOs, on the Solana blockchain:

1. Honey DAO: Honey DAO is a decentralized VC firm that lives on the Solana blockchain. People submit their Crypto projects, Defi projects, etc., via Honey DAO's website. From there, the DAO's community members will vote on whether to fund the project or not. Currently, Honey DAO has invested over $587k into four projects.
2. Invictus DAO: Invictus DAO is a fork of Ethereum's Olympus DAO. Similar to the Olympus DAO, Invictus DAO seeks to build a reserve currency for the crypto world. The primary use case for the Invictus DAO is staking the Invictus Token.
3. Mango Markets: Mango Markets is a DeFi platform that allows you to make spot margined trades, trade futures, etc., all on the Solana blockchain. Since the Solana blockchain powers this trading platform, the trading fees are nearly zero. Mango Markets is governed by a strong community-based DAO that votes on the rules and changes for the platform.

If you enjoyed reading this article and would like to learn more about DeFi and build your own DeFi project or receive blockchain consulting, then please feel free to contact our team of elite developers who can help you achieve great results and become the pioneer of our future. Also, if you would like to learn more about the services our company offers, then definitely check out the Services page.

For more related articles feel free to scroll down this page or visit our designated Blog page which will keep you up-to-date with the latest trends in the web3 world.