A2ZBeginners' Guide to Solana
Solana is an open-source blockchain that leverages new technologies to provide a fast, scalable and advanced marketplace and decentralised applications (dapps).
Background
Anatoly Yakovenko founded Solana before working as an engineer at multinational Qualcomm, also having experience with file hosting service Dropbox. Yakovenko, together with Eric Williams and Greg Fitzgerald, started working on Solana in 2017, which was officially launched in March 2020 —under the Solana Foundation, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
In 2017, Solana debuted via an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), raising over US$25 million through various private and public sale rounds. Solana became one of the fastest-growing ecosystems after its debut, attracting several high-profile crypto companies and institutional capital to its network including Multicoin Capital, CMCC Global, Chainlink, Serum, and more.
Solana’s Underlying Technology
Solana has a hybrid consensus model and several innovative mechanisms that keep the network running. Let’s take a look at its most important features: