Crypto Startup Solana Raises $314 Million (WSJ)

The WSJ on Solana’s $314M raise to build a faster blockchain — the first crypto piece Kyle noted reading.

Why it was kept

Kyle’s own framing is in the capture. The excerpts: DeFi may need a better blockchain for wider adoption; Solana’s claim of 50,000+ transactions per second; ‘the most ambitious tech road map of any blockchain’; and why the earliest blockchains are slow.

As Kyle captured it

• Crypto Startup Solana Raises $314 Million to Develop Faster Blockchain (This is the first thing I’ve read, for some reason, to ever get me excited about Crypto #Solana )
  • For wider adoption, though, DeFi may need a better blockchain—and that is where Solana hopes to make it big. Many DeFi ventures use Ethereum, which has suffered bouts of network congestion this year, resulting in slow settlement times and high fees. Ethereum currently handles 13 transactions a second, according to data provider Blockchair.com.
  • By comparison, Solana says it can process more than 50,000 transactions a second, a capacity that could increase further, as new hardware is added.
  • “Solana has the most ambitious tech road map of any blockchain, and they’ve been making impressive progress on it,” said Sam Bankman-Fried
  • The earliest blockchains, like the one behind bitcoin, are just used to store and transmit digital money. But Ethereum and other newer blockchains can support a variety of other applications, from games where users swap virtual kittens to peer-to-peer lending networks.
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