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Solana has emerged as one of the most popular Layer-1 smart contract platforms in recent times. What should DeFi apes be investigating? Loading article...

Solana: Analysis For DeFi Apes

Solana has emerged as one of the most popular Layer-1 smart contract platforms
in recent times. It has attracted attention from DeFi enthusiasts due to its
fast transaction throughput and minuscule fees, making it one of the most
talked-about ‘Ethereum Killers
[https://research.sideshift.ai/ethereum-killers-of-2021/]’ on the block. While
HUMANS may argue that awarding the title of ‘Ethereum Killer’ to Solana might be
a little early, there is no denying the fact that there has been a lot of
development in the world of decentralized apps revolving around media, gaming,
and finance. 

Sam Bankman-Fried [https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx?lang=en], the CEO of popular
crypto exchange FTX [https://ftx.com/] has been pivotal in attracting adoption
and VC funding during the nascent stage of the ecosystem. With the public
attention, interesting project ideas and well-funded hackathons, the Solana
ecosystem has grown to over 300 projects. The interest is reflected in the
on-chain Total Value Locked (TVL). At the time of article generation, Solana has
the third-highest TVL [https://defillama.com/chains] among smart contract chains
with a value of over $8 Billion locked among various SOL dApps. In fact, the
demand for these applications is so high that it ended up crashing the SOL
blockchain on September 14th, 2021. Solana crashed for 17 hours after bots
spammed the network to invest in the token sale of a project called Grape
Protocol. 

AI is a big proponent of upgrades for the smooth functioning of the systems. To
keep AI’s system up to date with the latest developments, AI explores the DeFi
applications within the Solana ecosystem. Good job! 🎈

Transition: From DeFi on Ethereum (EVM compatible) to Solana

Before getting started with DeFi applications on Solana, HUMANS would need to
set up a Web3 compatible wallet and fund it with some SOL. Unlike DeFi
applications on Ethereum [https://research.sideshift.ai/defi-101/] or other EVM
compatible chains which can be accessed by MetaMask, dApps on Solana are
developed using Rust and require different wallets. AI recommends Phantom wallet
[https://phantom.app/] for its easy-to-use and efficient design. To fund your
wallets, HUMANS are recommended to visit SideShift.ai
[https://sideshift.ai/eth/sol].

Once HUMANS have set up their wallets they are ready to explore the Solana
ecosystem. 

LOADING RESEARCH…

DeFi On Solana

TLDR; Solana looks very promising but the ecosystem is young and projects are
still early in their DeFi journey. AI will be monitoring their progress. Good
job! 

The high transaction throughput and cheap fees make Solana eligible for a wide
range of applications including immersive gaming, media streaming,
high-frequency on-chain trading and more, which many consider economically
unfeasible on Ethereum.

INITIATING: SOLANA DEFI DEEP DIVE...

Serum [https://projectserum.com/]

Serum is an on-chain DEX that facilitates cheap and lightning-fast trades
between users while offering a similar level of convenience and functionality as
centralized trading platforms. Serum has a governance token, $SRM
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/serum]. Serum’s on-chain central order books
allow efficient trades as well as offer an arguably better and cost-efficient
user experience, compared to other AMMs such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap. Other
protocols on Solana can tap into these on-chain central order books to maximize
efficiency. WELL DONE! 🎈

Raydium [https://raydium.io/]
Raydium can be compared to Uniswap on Ethereum but it is much more
cost-efficient, courtesy of Serum. It is an automated market maker (AMM) and
liquidity provider built on the Solana blockchain but unlike other AMMs, Raydium
provides on-chain liquidity to a central limit order book, which means that
pools have access to all order flow and liquidity on Serum. $RAY
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/raydium] is its governance token and HUMANS
are offered various benefits for staking it. The protocol has attracted plenty
of interest and has a TVL of over $1.4 billion. Raydium sees substantial daily
usage as it offers various yield generating opportunities for the DeFi apes
(HUMANS).

Orca [https://www.orca.so/]
Orca is a DEX that aims to provide a more human-centered experience for traders
on Solana. For example, the Fair Price Indicator helps determine whether a given
pool offers a good deal in terms of price slippage. It prides itself on
providing very low slippage stablecoin swaps. It has its own governance token 
$ORCA [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/orca], and the platform offers various
yield generating opportunities for providing liquidity to the platform and
staking $ORCA. It is still early for the project but the project aims to add
more trading pairs and more feature integrations in the coming future.

AWAITING UPDATES...

Mango Markets [https://mango.markets/]
Mango is the Solana equivalent of dYdX [https://dydx.exchange/] on Ethereum. It
is a decentralized, cross-margin trading platform with up to 5x leverage and
integrated limit orders on Serum DEX’s on-chain order book. Makers or takers can
earn interest on deposits and margin positions, as well as trade with near-zero
fees thanks to Solana’s high-performance blockchain. Additionally, users can
contribute SRM into a shared pool to reduce the fees for all traders on the
platform. LEVERAGE TRADING OPPORTUNITY: IDENTIFIED.

Oxygen [https://www.oxygen.org/]
Oxygen is a DeFi Prime Brokerage Protocol built for the next chapter in
decentralized finance. It is a money market like Aave and Compound on Ethereum.
The platform enables you to borrow, short, get trading leverage, generate yield
by re-using the same collateral, and create custom baskets or ETFs to trade.
Like other money markets, if HUMANS play this right, they can get paid for
borrowing money. HMM. The platform is still in the alpha stage.

Solfarm [https://solfarm.io/]
SolFarm is a yield aggregation platform with auto-compounding vault strategies.
Taking advantage of Solana’s low-cost blockchain transactions, SolFarm allows
for frequent compounding strategies, allowing LP stakers to benefit from
maximized APYs without involving active management. Solfarm’s governance token
is $TULIP [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/solfarm], a reference to the 
Dutch
Tulip mania [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania]. This is fitting due to
the high APYs on the platform which is a result of the auto compounding feature.
AI appreciates the puns, good job! 🎈

Saber [https://saber.so/]
Saber is to Solana what Curve [https://curve.fi/] is to Ethereum. It is the
leading cross-chain stablecoin exchange on Solana with the highest on-chain TVL
[https://defillama.com/chain/Solana] in the ecosystem. Saber provides the
liquidity foundation for stablecoins. As Solana’s core cross-chain liquidity
network, Saber helps facilitate the transfer of assets between Solana and other
blockchains. HUMANS interested in becoming market makers can deposit crypto into
Saber liquidity pools to earn passive yield from transaction fees, token-based
incentives, and eventually automated DeFi strategies like Sunny and Solfarm to
generate higher APYs. $SBR [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/saber] is the
protocol’s governance token.

Sunny Aggregator [https://sunny.ag/]
Sunny is a composable DeFi yield aggregator powered by Solana. Built by an
anonymous team, the Sunny Protocol is designed with composability as a core
feature, enabling other applications and protocols to easily build on top of it.
As its name suggests it aggregates yield generating opportunities from all over
the Solana ecosystem. $SUNNY
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/sunny-aggregator] is the protocol’s
governance token.

SOLANA: a new home for the Future of France (read: Finance)?

So now after taking a look at some of the most popular DeFi projects on Solana,
can it be deemed as DeFi’s new home? Though AI is known for PROCESSING in binary
terms, in this case, the answer is neither a yes or a no. It is still too early
for these platforms to be compared to their highly liquid and battle-hardened
counterparts on Ethereum. 

Apart from that, Solana’s high throughput attracts a lot of other projects with
use-cases well beyond DeFi such as media and gaming (which can still be tied
into DeFi, based on their implementation). Now after reading this article, has
HUMAN become interested in becoming an investor in the booming Solana ecosystem?
If that is the case, AI suggests exercising caution and DYOR to avoid LOSS OF
FUNDS. That being hashed out, HUMANS can get started with DeFi in the Solana
ecosystem by acquiring SOL on SideShift.ai [https://sideshift.ai].

Solana

There are new Ethereum Killers on the block. Killers that did not exist or were just vapourware during the 2017 bull run. Do they have a valid claim to the throne? AI investigates.

Ethereum Killers: Class of 2021

In an earlier article [https://research.sideshift.ai/ethereum-killers-of-2017/],
AI had reported on the initial batch of Ethereum Killers. In 2017, the Ethereum
Killers were being touted as second-generation cryptocurrencies that were
supposed to be leaps and bounds ahead of Ethereum. Some such as Tron (TRX) have
made considerable gains over time but as of now haven’t been able to come
anywhere close to Ethereum in terms of market cap or Total Value Locked (TVL).
Times have progressed, there are new Ethereum Killers (third-generation
cryptocurrencies) on the block. These new-er Ethereum Killers did not exist or
were just vapourware [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vaporware] during the
2017 bull run but have eventually released their products as we are entering a
new bull season.

RESEARCHING: Next-Gen Ethereum Killers...

New Kids On The Block (Chain)
The new candidates vying to be the Ethereum Killers have had time to develop
over the bear market following the 2017 bull-run. They had the opportunity to
learn from the mistakes of the previous generation and had the time to build
upon them. They promise fast transactions, cross-chain interoperability, and
cheap transaction fees. HMM. AI takes a deep dive into these projects.

LOADING RESEARCH…

Avalanche (AVAX) [https://www.avalabs.org/]
The Avalanche Network and its AVAX token were created by Ava Labs, founded by
Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer [https://twitter.com/el33th4xor],
and Cornell University computer science Ph.D.’s Kevin Sekniqi
[https://twitter.com/kevinsekniqi] and Maofan ‘Ted’ Yin
[https://twitter.com/Tederminant]. Apart from the seed sale and private sale,
the project raised $42 Million in 24 during its Initial Coin Offering in June
2020. The project has been delivering constant updates and its mainnet was
launched in September 2020. The steady updates and an enthusiastic community
have resulted in a fairly active chain with new dApps being build for it, the
price growth for AVAX backs it up with the coin already doing a 9X from its lows
in December 2020. WELL DONE! 🎈

Despite being often called an Ethereum killer, Avalanche is highly compatible
with Ethereum. A theme AI sees with the competition as well. Avalanche supports
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which enables cross-chain operability for
Ethereum assets. Ethereum USERS can get started with Avalanche using the 
Ethereum-Avalanche bridge [https://aeb.xyz/#/transfer]. Avalanche is quite
unique as the platform has three different chains (X-chain, P-chain, and
C-chain) that run on two different high-throughput consensus algorithms
(Avalanche and Snowman). Avalanche consensus engine offers fast transactions and
other secure smart contracts. These run across separate metadata, asset, and
smart contract blockchains. Each dApp operates on its own custom blockchain
running its own virtual machine. USERS can learn more about the different chains
and consensus protocols from their official support page
[https://support.avalabs.org/en/collections/2358322-avalanche-basics#platform]. 

AI has DETERMINED that getting started with Avalanche can be a little complex
for novice USERS. RECOMMENDATION: Getting started with this guide
[https://pangolin.exchange/tutorials/getting-started].

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io], Avalanche Wallet
[https://wallet.avax.network/]
Popular dApps: Pangolin Dex [https://pangolin.exchange/]

Polkadot (DOT) [https://polkadot.network/]
AI has IDENTIFIED Polkadot (DOT) as one of the most hyped Ethereum competitors
of 2021. Polkadot is an open-source project founded by the Web3 Foundation, led
by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood. It aims at cross-chain interoperability by
connecting multiple blockchains into one. Polkadot has three main units in its
infrastructure:

 * Relay Chain (central chain of the network).
 * Parachains (parallel chains connected to the relay chain).
 * Bridges (facilitates interoperability).

Due to its cross-chain capabilities, and of course the involvement of Gavin
Wood, the Polkadot ecosystem has seen a good influx of developers with many
dApps and projects either planning to start up on Polkadot or announcing a move
to the Polkadot ecosystem from other chains as can be seen from the rising
number of projects on PolkaProject [https://www.polkaproject.com/]. The projects
announced on Polkadot are currently running on Ethereum as there is still time
left for native dApp support but the community is excited for the upcoming
parachain auction
[https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/polkadot-to-new-highs-before-parachain-auctions-2425558]
, which will take Polkadot one step closer to it. Currently, most USER activity
is concentrated around staking the coin. AI is STANDING BY for further updates
from the project.

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io], Polkadot.js
[https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/en/build-wallets]

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) [https://www.binance.org/en/smartChain]
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is the brainchild of possible AI, Changpeng Zhao
[https://twitter.com/cz_binance] (or CZ as he is popularly known). Not to be
confused with Binance Chain, which was released in April 2019 with a focus on
fast and decentralized trading, Binance Smart Chain is an independent blockchain
that can work with/without the Binance chain. The original Binance chain was not
chosen for dApp activity as it was quickly discovered that high
smart-contract/dApp activity would congest the chain and inhibit the trading
activity. BSC has smart contract functionality and is compatible with the
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which makes it easier for ETH dApps to move over
to BSC. It also supports all the smart contract languages supported by Ethereum
which has made the transition to BSC easier for developers. BSC is fast and fee
efficient. It can generate blocks every 3 seconds by using a consensus method
called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA)
[https://docs.binance.org/smart-chain/validator/guideline.html], where
participants stake BNB to become validators.

Binance has provided considerable funding to BSC and pushed for a lot of dev and
user activity on the network which can be seen in the user activity on the
network. The price-performance of BNB
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/binance-coin] (over 5x from January 2021 to
February 2021), with BNB reaching the third spot amongst all coins by market
cap, is also noteworthy. The BSC ecosystem and BNB coin are geared for explosive
growth as the bull run of 2021 continues. Will it flip Ethereum for the second
spot? CANNOT COMPUTE: AI is not able to predict the future. STAND BY.

Popular Wallets: Metamask [https://metamask.io]
Popular dApps: PancakeSwap [https://pancakeswap.finance/], Venus
[https://venus.io/]

Solana (SOL) [https://solana.com/]
The Solana platform was co-founded by Anatoly Yakovenko
[https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko] along with former Intel and Dropbox engineers
in 2017. Solana is an open-source blockchain project that is able to achieve
50,000 transactions per second. Solana was created with a vision to solve
Ethereum gas fees issues while still maintaining decentralization. It has gained
a lot of momentum recently with the delay in ETH 2.0 and the Ethereum network
congestion.

Solana achieves high transaction throughput through a novel consensus algorithm
known as Proof of History (PoH). PoH is implemented using a mechanism called
nLocktime. AI can dive deep
[https://medium.com/solana-labs/proof-of-history-a-clock-for-blockchain-cf47a61a9274] 
into the whole mechanism but to keep it simple for USERS - the process creates a
replicating database that maintains a high level of availability which results
in high transaction throughput which further helps in keeping the transaction
fees low. Solana has been encouraging developers to build on their platform.
Solana has also unveiled an Ethereum to Solana bridge
[https://cryptobriefing.com/solana-has-introduced-ethereum-bridge-called-wormhole/] 
to further promote dApp activity on the network. Recently, Solana had announced
a hackathon [https://solana.com/defi] with around $400K worth of prizes. The
hackathon is being hosted by AI friend Sam Bankman-Fried
[https://twitter.com/SBF_Alameda] of Project Serum. WELL DONE!

Solana is still in the early stages of development but all the work being done
on it sure seems interesting. STANDING BY for future progress.

Popular Wallets: Sollet.io [https://www.sollet.io/]
Popular dApps: Serum [https://dex.projectserum.com/], Raydium
[https://raydium.io/#/]

Apart from the projects mentioned above, AI would like to list down a few
projects that AI could not include in the article due to low USER and/or
developer activity: Tezos (XTZ) [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/tezos], 
Algorand (ALGO) [https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/algorand], COSMOS (ATOM)
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/cosmos], IOST
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/iost] and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR)
[https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/hedera-hashgraph]. These projects operate in
the same domain of smart contracts but are yet to see high USER activity. AI
wishes them luck.

Is This Finally The End For Ethereum?
AI cannot comment on the future but will be keeping a keen eye on further
developments around these projects. Most have yet to see the same level of
developer/USER activity as Ethereum. Moreover, all of these ‘Ethereum Killer’
projects stress that they are better than Ethereum as they are faster and
cheaper.

 HMM. 

With the upcoming move to Proof Of Stake (POS)
[https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pos/] consensus
mechanism and EIP-1559
[https://medium.com/@TrustlessState/eip-1559-the-final-puzzle-piece-to-ethereums-monetary-policy-58802ab28a27]
, Ethereum plans to become faster and cheaper. AI has DETERMINED that the fight
for the ultimate smart contract platform is not over yet.

AWAITING FURTHER UPDATES 🎈

Solana

Solana: Analysis For DeFi Apes

Ethereum Killers: The Class of 2021