JOSE RIZAL UNIVERSITY

Solana
In partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the Subject – MGT C401 Strategic
Management

Paul Harley Dagunan

Trisha Evangelista
Latrel Vahn Grantos
Ismael Jugo
Alayssa Macapagal
Pamela Sumaylo
Executive Summary:

Solana is a public base layer blockchain protocol which was founded by Anatoly Yakovenko on
November of 2017. Solana specializes with Proof-of-History system and Proof-of-Stake
consensus mechanism that is compatible with creating decentralized applications (dApps)
without the use of layer-2 scaling solution. Solana is a digital currency which aims to eliminate
the need of layering protocols in the network while excelling in the area of decentralization,
scalability, and security. Solana has a native token which is called SOL. People who wish to
invest and trade SOL tokens can do so through centralized and decentralized exchanges. Solana
currently has 87 employees; the Solana Foundation has council members who is responsible for
the growth and efficiency of the Solana ecosystem. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Solana is
not regulated, but acknowledged by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Cryptocurrencies are not
listed in the Securities and Exchange Commission, since cryptocurrencies aren’t
securities/stocks. Rather, they are listed on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Cryptocurrencies has shown to be beneficial to a countries GDP through mining and wiring of
net profits made through trading and investing. The distribution of Solana tokens (SOL) can be
bought through centralized and decentralized exchanges. Also, SOL’s are being distributed to
stake-holders, validator nodes, and miners as rewards. Solana, one of the most performant
permissionless blockchains in the world, the network has 200 physically distinct nodes
supporting a throughput of more than 50,000 - 65,000 TPS when running with GPUs. The
research team conducted a SWOT and TOWS matrix analysis on Solana and its ecosystem. The
researchers found through the use of EFE and IFE matrix that Solana is able to maximize the
opportunities and threats in the market with a weighted score of 2.40. Solana has a weighted
score of 3.1 when it comes to the IFE matrix, testifying that Solana has a strong advantage in the
Cryptocurrency market among competitors. One of the biggest challenges with distributed
systems is the agreement in time. One of the biggest challenges when it comes to the Solana
network is its Mainnet (main network) being in the Beta phase. Though beta testing has shown
both advantage and disadvantages, this paper has produced a proposal strategy in regards to their
Mainnet. The proposed strategy was examined by at least 5 cryptocurrency experts through likert
scale survey, and the results are below:
CHAPTER I

History of the Firm:

Solana, a public base layer Blockchain protocol that optimizes for scalability was founded by
Anatoly Yakovenko. The draft white paper was published on November 2017. The draft white
paper includes the goal of Anatoly which is to provide a platform that enables developers to
create decentralized applications (dApps) without the hassle and fear of traffic jams in a
Blockchain network also without using a layer-2 scaling protocol. The solution is, according to
Anatoly, a timestamp system called Proof-of-History (PoH) which is not a consensus
mechanism, but rather a sequence of computation that enables automatically ordered transactions
through high frequency verifiable delay function. Of course, the platform also uses a consensus
algorithm to help secure the network which is the Proof of Stake (PoS).

There are additional design goals which include the sub-second settlement times, low
transactions costs, and support for all lowlevel virtual machine (LLVM) compatible smart
contract languages. Almost all Blockchain networks, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, deals with
the problem of poor scalability. This is because of the time required to reach a consensus on the
order of transactions. Anatoly believed his new technique could automate the transaction
ordering process for Blockchains, providing a key piece that would enable the crypto networks to
scale well-beyond their capabilities.

Anatoly later teamed up with his former colleague at Qualcomm named Greg Fitzgerald to build
a single Blockchain network in Rust that used PoH as its internal decentralized clock. They
released the first internal Testnet with a demo, also releasing their official version of the project’s
white paper in February 2018. Another former Qualcomm cohort named Stephen Akridge
suggested that “offloading signature verification to graphics processors could further increase
transaction throughout, leading to better scalability”. Anatoly recruited both Greg and Stephen
along with three others to found the company that would eventually become Solana Labs. The
founding team included former Apple engineers in addition to the Qualcomm veterans. They
initially named the project Loom but later decided to rename it to Solana to avoid confusion with
the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution which is named LOOM NETWORK.
Solana began raising funds to build its new crypto network in the first quarter of 2018. Between
April 2018 and July 2019, the company raised a little over $20 million in various private token
sales. The fundraising effort ran parallel to Solana’s work on the protocol, which went through
several permissioned Testnet phases before the team announced its public incentivized Testnet
called Tour de SOL which was in the third quarter of 2020. The first stage of Tour de SOL went
live in February 2020, and it continues to run alongside the Mainnet Beta version of Solana until
today. Solana launched on Mainnet Beta in March 2020, shortly after raising $1.76 million in a
public token auction which was hosted on CoinList. The projects beta network featured basic
transactions capabilities and smart contract support.

Nature of the Business:

Solana is a Cryptocurrency which aims to take the blockchain technology to a whole new level.
Solana is a blockchain network which focuses on scalability through the use of proof-of-history
system. Aside from the consensus mechanism that Solana uses, the draft white paper includes the
goal of Anatoly which is to provide a platform that enables developers to create decentralized
applications (dApps) without the hassle and fear of traffic jams in a Blockchain network. In the
Solana network, ordered transactions are automatically enabled through high frequency
verifiable delay function.

Solana’s proof-of-history: One challenge of distributed networks is finding agreement on the

time and sequence in which events occurred, as nodes within the network cannot simply trust an
external source of time or any timestamp that appears in a message. Solana requires all validators
to constantly solve SHA256-based Verifiable Delay Functions (VDF). A VDF requires a specific
number of sequential steps to evaluate, yet produces a unique output that can be efficiently and
publicly verified.

The VDFs can only be solved by a single CPU core applying a particular set of sequential steps.
The team notes that since for a SHA256 hash function, parallel processing is impossible without
a brute force attack using 2¹²⁸ cores; it is not difficult to define exactly how long it takes to apply
those steps.

Solana's specific implementation uses a sequential hash that runs over itself continuously with
the previous output used as the next input. With the computational output of the current function
"X", a validator will be able to calculate the output for the next function "Y". Since the
computation is universal, meaning all validators need to solve the same function "X", and will be
able to derive the output for the next function "Y" in around the same time, Solana is able to
create a synchronized "clock" across the whole network.

Solana’s Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance: Each time a node on the network votes on a
particular fork, voting is restricted to a fixed period of hashes, which is called a slot. The current
network setting has around 400ms for one slot. Every 400ms, the network has a potential
rollback point, but every subsequent vote doubles the amount of time that the network would
have to stall before it can unroll that vote.
For instance, each validator has voted 32 times in the last 12 seconds. The vote 12 seconds ago
now will have a timeout of 2³² slots, or roughly 54 years. Effectively, this vote will never be
rolled back by the network. Whereas the most recent vote has a timeout of 2 slots, or about
800ms. As new blocks are added to the ledger, old blocks are increasingly likely to be confirmed
because the number of slots old votes are committed to doubles every slot, or every 400ms.
Tower BTF offers finality as Once ⅔ of validators have voted on some order of events, it will be
canonicalized and cannot be rolled back.

Solana’s Turbine: Often times in a distributed system, increasing the node count will increase
the amount of time necessary to propagate all the data to all nodes. Turbine is a block
propagation protocol aimed to solve this issue.
With Turbine, if a node were to propagate a very large message to the 1,000 peers, it would not
transmit the information 1,000 times itself. Instead, the message would be broken down into
very small packets, transmitting each packet to a different validator.
In turn, each validator retransmits the packet to a group of peers that are called a neighborhood.
Each neighborhood is responsible for transmitting a portion of its data to each neighborhood next
to it. If each neighborhood is comprised of 200 nodes, a 3-level network, starting with a single
leader at the root, can reach 40,000 validators in 2 hops.

Current Revenue Size, Profit and Profitability:

As of November 5, 2021 Solana’s native token, SOL, is currently valued at $244.14 with a
market capitalization of $73,478,409,518.61 The network currently has a trading volume of
$4,091,596,699.77. Solana has a block height of 94,258,353 with a current epoch progress of
65.4%.

Solana currently has a NGC venture fund project which emphasizez development, hiring, and
prudent treasury and financial management. Up to $20 million will be deployed to projects with
potential for disrupting the target markets. NGC venture will also offer mentorship based on
entrepreneurial experience, specifically in regard to company building, hiring, and treasury
management.

Majors markets served:

Centralized Exchanges

Decentralized Exchanges (DEX’s)

Decentralized Applications (dApps)

Blockchain and NFT institutions

Number of employees:

According to craft.co/Solana, Solana Labs currently has (est.) of 87 employees, with 7 job
openings. Solana’s hiring categories consist mostly of technological (60%) followed by
creativity (20%) and sales (20%). In the company’s website, a career page is provided for the
purpose of connecting Solana itself and its ecosystem employers with potential employees. The
career webpage defines the job profile and all the details to provide the candidate the
requirements and qualifications to secure a job at Solana and/or their ecosystem. The Solana
foundation council members are listed below:

The Solana Foundation list of Council Members:

Anatoly Yakovenko

Anatoly is one of the co-founders of Solana. He led the development of operating systems at
Qualcomm, distributed systems at Mesosphere, and compression at Dropbox. He holds 2 patents
for high performance Operating Systems protocols, and was a core kernel developer for BREW
which powered every CDMA flip phone (100m+ devices), and led development of tech that made
Project Tango (VR/AR) possible on Qualcomm phones.
Wolfgang Albrecht

Wolfgang is an entrepreneur and investor both in and outside the crypto sphere. He is a co-
founder of Staking Facilities, which strives to develop industry standards for convenient staking
with compelling project selection while retaining the highest security standards

James Prestwitch

James is a Cryptocurrency engineer and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Summa, where he

leads the on-chain services team. As part of his work on cross-chain development, he contributes
to Cross-Chain Group research and maintains free and open-source Bitcoin libraries for a
number of public chains.

Mable Jiang

Mable is an investor at Multicoin Capital, where she and her colleagues manage a hedge fund
and a venture fund. A big part of her work focuses on helping entrepreneurs identify the best
operational strategy and partnership opportunities, and bridge the East-West knowledge gap.
Prior to crypto investment, Mable had experience in traditional finance at Citi Bank and strategy
at Didi.

The Solana Foundation, a Swiss organization, owns Solana’s IP and will help set the broad
development direction for the network alongside. In the company’s website, a career page is
provided for the purpose of connecting Solana itself and its ecosystem employers with potential
employees. The career webpage defines the job profile and all the details to provide the
candidate the requirements and qualifications to secure a job at Solana and/or their ecosystem.

.
CHAPTER II - RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Data Requirement and Data Sources

Purpose:

Solana, according to its white paper, is a single-chain, delegated-Proof-of-Stake protocol whose

focus is on delivering scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.

Scope:

Solana’s goal is to maximize security and scalability. The network generates 65,000 transactions
per second at full capacity.

Foundation/System Purpose:

Founded by former Qualcomm, Intel, and Dropbox engineers in late-2017, Solana is a single-
chain, delegated-Proof-of-Stake protocol whose focus is on delivering scalability without
sacrificing decentralization or security. Core to Solana's scaling solution is a decentralized clock
titled Proof-of-History (PoH), built to solve the problem of time in distributed networks in where
there is not a single, trusted, source of time. By using Verifiable Delay Functions, PoH allows
each node to locally generate timestamps with SHA256 computations. This eliminates the need
for the broadcasts of timestamps accross the network, improving overall network efficiency.
Solana’s mission is to support all high-growth and high-frequency blockchain applications, and
to democratize the world’s financial systems.

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The paper aims to maximize available data and information through the use of Solana’s official
white paper, research website tools, books, articles, blogs/vlogs, reports, and news. Qualitative
research is exploratory in nature, providing new insights into people's thoughts and motives.
Qualitative data is mostly descriptive in nature, which means it's utilized to assess a subject's
quality rather than to quantify a parameter's quantity. Specifically, the side of qualitative research
that will be focused on is inductive approach, which does not demand a theory or any
expectations to begin research.

The research paper aims to provide information on Solana and its ecosystem: its basics,
activities, technology, policies, legalities, up to the news and progress of the network. The
research team will utilize the descriptive research design. A researcher using a descriptive
design is only concerned in explaining the circumstance or case under investigation, not else
more. It's a theory-based design process that involves collecting, interpreting, and presenting
data. This enables a researcher to explain why and how research is conducted. Descriptive design
aids others in comprehending the research's requirement. In this term, the research will answer to
questions pertaining to Solana’s SWOT and TOWS matrix. SWOT, Lastly, collection of data and
analysis of it for the means of presenting is also covered by this research design.

Data Gathering Procedure

The research team will take the form of qualitative and descriptive method in the study, and it
will utilize existing data pertaining to Solana and its ecosystem. First, researchers will have to
identify the research problem. As the researchers are required to learn about Solana: as a
blockchain network, the researchers will have to look for credible sources and references. Due to
limitations, online data gathering will be utilized. The next step will be disseminating the
research problem to each researcher to focus on. Each must provide references from charts,
reports, studies, articles, books, and all kinds of reliable data sources. The research team will
then analyse and interpret the data’s gathered based on its’ content, credibility, and accuracy.
After sorting and processing the data, it will be prepared to be presented.

Research Limitations

 Time Limitations- due to requirements along with other personal activities, the time
allotted for data gathering and processing is limited. In addition to this, preparation for
defense require researchers to pace faster.
 Current Environmental State- the COVID-19 pandemic impacted researchers in terms of
freedom to gather data from physical sources (books, literatures, and other sources) is
limited into online. In addition, researchers also have to deal with personal matters
brought by the pandemic.
  Method- as the research will utilize qualitative only as it will use existing data, some
nature of the qualitative data such as survey conducting or interview will not be
embodied. In addition, theoretical basis will also not be included as it will be deemed
unnecessary on the study.

Research Assumptions

 Consumer-based Assumption- There will be an increase of cryptocurrency investors,

traders, and mass adaptation due to increase of value and demand for it.
 Competition-based Assumption- New entrants will try to utilize penetration strategy to
entice market volume and switch to their network in order to have demand and market
value leverage.
 External Environment-based Assumption- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be
a shift on the economy and we may assume that the cryptocurrency market will remain
volatile.

Definition of Terms

 Cryptocurrency
A form of payment that can be exchanged online for goods and services
 Cryptography
The study of secure communications techniques that allow only the sender and intended
recipient of a message to view its contents.
 Blockchain
a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are
maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network.
 Consensus mechanism
A fault-tolerant mechanism that is used in computer and blockchain systems to achieve
the necessary agreement on a single data value or a single state of the network among
distributed processes or multi-agent systems, such as with cryptocurrencies.
 Ecosystem
 A group of elements capable of interating with each other and the surrounding world for
creating an environment with desired special features.
 Decentralization
Direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions to take place online securely and without
the need for an intermediary
 Scalability
the limitation of the blockchain for the processing of multiple transactions.
 Layer 2
The system that confirms transactions faster than a major blockchain network. Layer 2
chains are often designed to handle small transactions or micropayments with lower fees
or no fees, as well as to reduce traffic on the main network
 Mainnet
An independent blockchain running its own network with its own technology and
protocol. It is a live blockchain where its own cryptocurrencies or tokens are in use, as
compared to a testnet or projects running on top of other popular networks such as
Ethereum.
 Proof of History
A sequence of computation that can provide a way to cryptographically verify passage of
time between two events.
 Proof of Stake
a type of consensus mechanism used to validate cryptocurrency transactions. It allows
owners of a cryptocurrency to stake coins and create their own validator nodes.
 Proof of Work
A decentralized consensus mechanism that requires members of a network to expend
effort solving an arbitrary mathematical puzzle to prevent anybody from gaming the
system.
 Staking
A way to put a crypto to work and earn rewards on it
 Mining
A process of creating new crypto coins by solving complex mathematical equations.
 Validator nodes
 Operators who each store a copy of the blockchain and must perform certain functions to
keep the system secure.

CHAPTER III - VISION AND MISSION

Mission and Vision:

The Solana Foundation was founded with a mission to advance the adoption of decentralized
technologies as a public good.

The Solana Foundation has a vision of a world where individuals are empowered to retain
ownership of their data and can access networks through which they transfer value without being
reliant on third-parties.

Evaluation:

Mission

The Solana Ecosystem is known to be a high-performance blockchain that provides block

explorer and network performance. This ecosystem is growing popular among developers for
being a fast, secure and censorship-resistant blockchain that offers an open infrastructure for
global adoption. This ecosystem offers about 250 services, including analytics, tools, wallets,
exchange, investment funds, cryptocurrency apps, and more. Let’s take a look at the ten biggest
cryptocurrencies on the Solana Ecosystem.

Solana may want to improve its Mainnet and ecosystem to be able to reach its mission. By
improving the Mainnet, actually, by graduating from Beta to at least Gamma phase, this can give
Solana a leverage when it comes to catering investors and traders in the network compared to
other blockchains. Focusing on its Mainnet will give shareholders the sense reliability and
security whenever performing certain task in the Mainnet. Thus, earning the investors’trust.
Better network ecosystem increases trust, security, transparency, and the traceability of data
shared across a cryptocurrency network, and it delivers cost savings efficiently. Solana is among
a group of networks vying to be one of the foremost platforms for using blockchain technology.
Developers can build products on top of Solana that allow users to carry out secure transactions
and execute digital contracts.
Essentially, Solana wants to be a home for decentralized applications, which allow users to do
business without the need for (and costs associated with) a trusted intermediary such as a bank or
a broker. In this way, Solana is competing in a crowded space that includes blockchains such as
Ethereum and Cardano, along with traditional players in the world of finance.

Vision:

As the native cryptocurrency of the Solana network, SOL is designed to be used as a form of
payment either for services carried out over Solana, or as a fee for the computing power needed
to run the network. Users can buy SOL on a cryptocurrency exchange and earn more by helping
to verify activity on the system through a process known as staking.
Among the highest-profile Solana applications have been the sales of non-fungible tokens, or
NFTs, which allow a buyer to own a one-of-a-kind digital version of a piece of art. For instance,
one online collection of NFTs, known as Degenerate Ape Academy, sold a piece on the Solana
network for 5,980 SOL. At the time, that amount was worth about $1.1 million.
Other uses of Solana have been in finance, where developers are seeking to shake up the
traditional structure of the industry. And some projects on the network are looking to create
internet technologies that are less reliant on centralized authorities than those that exist today.
If you’re investing in Solana, you’re essentially betting that some of these efforts will succeed,
driving up the demand for SOL along with its value.

Recommendation on how mission and vision will communicate to employees and other
stockholders.

The Solana team and its shareholders may benefit from the mission and vision of the network by
overcoming the lack of social trust by increasing the access to financial services as they can be
considered as a medium to support the growth process in developing counties by increasing
financial inclusion, literacy, and awareness, providing a better traceability of funds and to help
people escape from poverty due to its revenue potential. Employees of Solana, as well as SOL
token holders has the potential to be able to grow and expand their businesses either locally or
overseas without having to navigate obstacles such as costs associated with the traditional
financial system.
CHAPTER IV

A. General Environment

PESTEL ANALYSIS

Political Economic Socio-Cultural Technological Law

Acknowledged Fourth largest Its security is a Decentralized – Not listed in SEC

by BSP (Circular cryptocurrenc selling point to the direct peer-to-peer
944) y in the investors
market as of Not backed up by any

November Scalability – law and institutions

Being adopted by 06, 2021 Young Filipinos 65,000 TPS
Philippine banks slowly adopting
(UnionBank) Cryptocurrency as Pump and Dump tend

Lower gas fee an investment Staking and to happen more since

compared to opportunity Mining for there is now law that

Listed in CFTC its main rewards prevents them

competitor –
Ethereum The convenience
and anonymity of
Bitcoin and other
Centralized Cryptocurrency
Exchanges such as Solana is
who list SOL becoming a
tokens lead to symbolic
increase GDP instrument of
freedom
Political

The central bank may see the Cryptocurrency trade as part of his bigger plan to advance the
country's electronic payment systems, analysts say. Cryptocurrency "probably goes toward those
efforts at facilitating electronic payments. I think that's the key point," said Christian de Guzman,
vice president and senior credit officer with Moody's Sovereign Risk Group in Singapore. In the
Philippines, reports by consensus experts from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) earlier this
month show that gaming rewards, BTC, ATM networks and rural banking integration are
‘reliable early indicators’ for the upsurge that makes crypto growth in the Philippines the world’s
third-fastest growing sector. The Fintech Philippines Association and European Chamber of
Commerce of the Philippines have reported similar findings.

Economic

Solana as a Cryptocurrency are disruptive economic innovations that have the potential to
revolutionise the current economic structure and change how banks and financial institutions
operate. Cryptocurrency have led to the emergence of a new market. Currencies like Bitcoin and
Ethereum and many others have opened gates for a new kind of market which unlike the present
money market is controlled by no one, but rather through Cryptography. Cyberspace has evolved
to the extent of self-managing body that can handle and maintain such disruptive markets. It is
pertinent to note that the near-zero transaction (depending on the Cryptocurrency coin) has made
these currencies even superior to the traditional money system that we are accustomed to.

A key economic feature of Solana as a Cryptocurrency is that mining is a public good.

Cryptocurrency mining can be considered as an export of computing processing time, which is
paid in a foreign currency. This can affect the GDP of a nation. Exports and imports are
considered in every method of calculating the GDP. Though it is an important note that the
actual GDP of a country is an estimate. It is difficult to calculate accurately the GDP, as one can
imagine the difficulty to calculate all of the consumption information about a given economy
(cash transactions, informal market transactions, etc.). However, economists try to include every
expenditure via estimations. In fact, the UK includes the estimation of drug sales and prostitution
as an illustration of the attempts to be accurate. Cryptocurrency could fall in the same category,
depending on how that country has received Cryptocurrency, mainly Bitcoin as a legal tender
and investment opportunity for its people.

In the past two years alone, Coins.ph, a centralized exchange platform where Filipinos can buy
and sell cryptocurrencies, claims to have doubled its user base to 10 million people, out of a total
adult population of 72 million Blockchain is also helping undercut the high cost of remittances.
Around 10% of the GDP of the Philippines comes from the 10 million expatriate Filipinos who
work overseas and send money back home to support their families. But wiring money via
traditional routes comes with high fees — an average of 6.9% for a $200 transfer — leaving a
big market opportunity for companies including PDAX, BloomX, SendFriend, Rebit and
Coins.ph to transfer funds for a fraction of the cost using crypto, that can be withdrawn as cash at
thousands of shops. The spokesperson says: The local Blockchain industry isn’t just confined to
exchanges and remittances though. There’s payroll service Paylance, real estate transaction
platform Qwikwire, and a coworking space BlockchainSpace, that also offers industry events and
training. Manila gaming company Altitude Games is fast becoming a local leader in Blockchain-
based virtual worlds, creating the NFT-powered Battle Racers game for Decentraland and
has Mushroom Mania for The Sandbox in development. In July, Union Bank teamed up with
exchange PDAX to enable everyone, including the unbanked, to invest in retail Treasury
bonds with as little as $100 via Blockchain at Bonds.ph. The government is also in the process of
fine turning regulations with the Blockchain Digital Technology Act. But not everything is full
speed ahead for Cryptocurrency in the Philippines. While the central bank has seriously
examined a CBDC or ‘digital peso’ it recently shelved plans to launch one until at least
2023. With 2021 already upon us, will this year see an improvement in the country’s fortunes?
Sadly, the signs don’t appear that promising with Moody’s Analytics predicting that due to “deep
recession and uncertain fiscal support of policy makers”, the Philippines will be the last country
in the Asia Pacific to recover from the pandemic’s economic effects. Adding to their woes, the
Philippines is pinning its Covid-19 relief hopes on 50 million doses of the Chinese made
Sinovac, which is reportedly not only less effective than other vaccines, but only a third of
Filipinos are willing to take it. So for the time being, the shift to remote work and digital
transactions seems to be a necessity rather than a choice.
Socio-Cultural

According to a recent study, the outbreak of digital currencies nowadays is contributed by

several factors, namely the functions of them as a symbolic instrument of freedom and
resistance/opposition toward authority and monetary policies, since anyone can buy, hold, and
trade cryptocurrencies. Another is the form of psychological excitement toward innovative
transaction methods and the possibilities of new investment speculations, despite the risks; and
as the path toward the convergence of everyday life with virtuality. Bitcoin currency is not
controlled by any institution, such as a central bank, but has the potential to disrupt economic
stability through the high volatility of value/price and the effects on foreign exchange rates.
Stability and price determinants are two factors that are still ambiguous at the moment.

Technological

More than a third of the world population does not have access to basic banking services that can
help them out in case of a personal financial crisis - loans, checking accounts and the list can go
on. These people that in most cases are already financially disadvantaged typically resort to
doubtful and dangerous lending practices. The interest rate of these practices is anything but fair,
which consequently leads to more instability among the people who requested the loan. This is
where cryptocurrencies come in with their high volatility and ease-of-use. There are now many
apps and programs that facilitate the use of cryptocurrencies and bring them closer to the wider
audience. An added benefit of Cryptocurrency use is that it’s completely decentralized, so
trading can be done freely across borders. The use of technology will facilitate a financial
revolution that will leave everyone more financially connected, empowered and enabled.
Because cryptocurrencies and Blockchain don’t need an actual brick-and-mortar building to
exist, the costs associated with their transitioning are minimal. There is no need for employee
wages, utility bills or rent to be paid, so these savings naturally morph into low transaction fees.
This in turn encourages more and more people to trust these new financial tools and start
transitioning, allowing for the global economy to be more closely intertwined. And depending on
the broker you choose, you can even trade with no minimum deposit requirements. Since all
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies transactions are automated and digitized, they are all tracked in
a distributed ledger. The best part about it is that it cannot be manipulated by either people or
companies, which greatly diminishes the risk of fraud and corruption. This means that
underdeveloped countries also have a greater chance of entering the financial transactions game
and boost their own economy and social prospects. What’s more, citizens will be able to keep
track of where state funds will be oriented and will thus have a say within their own political
climate.

A Blockchain is a special type of database. It is literally a digital ledger. A Blockchain has

certain unique properties. There are rules about how data can be added, and once the data has
been stored, it's virtually impossible to modify or delete it. Data is added over time in structures
called blocks. Each block is built on top of the last and includes a piece of information that links
back to the previous one. By looking at the most up-to-date block, we can check that it has been
created after the last. So if we continue all the way down the "chain," we'll reach our very first
block – known as the genesis block.

The real challenge standing in the way of a system like that is something called the Byzantine
Generals Problem. Conceived in the 1980s, it describes a dilemma in which isolated participants
must communicate to coordinate their actions. The specific dilemma involves a handful of army
generals that surround a city, deciding whether to attack it. The generals can only communicate
via messenger. Why decentralized? You could, of course, operate a Blockchain by yourself. But
you'd end up with a database that's clunky in comparison to superior alternatives. Its real
potential can be exploited in a decentralized environment – that is, one where all users are equal.
That way, the Blockchain can’t be deleted or maliciously taken over. It's a single source of truth
that anyone can see. Peer-to-peer or P2P on the other hand, is our layer of users. There's no
administrator, so instead of phoning into a central server anytime they want to exchange
information with another user, the user sends it directly to their peers.

Now, we look for a Blockchain network that offers decentralization, security, and scalability.
This is also called as the Blockchain trilemma. Many Blockchain networks, like BTC and ETH
offers these 3 theory, but with the help of layer-2 and even layer-3 solution. In simple language,
layer-2 and layer-3 are “technological add-ons” for the betterment of the whole network. Here is
an illustration, suppose you own a normal car without upgrades, you decided to buy new horn
with the intention of having louder horns for your safety. Or you decided to do some upgrades on
the engine to speed up your car. The horn and other upgrades can be somehow similar to layer-2
solutions. Layer 1 is responsible mainly for the decentralization of the ecosystem in the
Blockchain network. Layer 2, on the other hand, is a third-party integration combined with layer
1 to increase the number of nodes and transactions. Thus resulting in better scalability and of
course overall better performance of the whole network. BTC’s layer 2 scaling solution is called
the Lightning Network (LN) while the layer-2 scaling solution of ETH is called ETH 2.0. This
gives BTC a transaction per second (TPS) of about 5. While ETH is able to accomplish 13 TPS.

Those are important to note for us to be able to understand the technology of Solana. Solana
doesn’t have layer-2 scaling solution but has a TPS of 65,000! This is because of proof-of-
history (PoH) which is not a consensus mechanism, but rather a sequence of computation that
enables automatically ordered transactions through high frequency verifiable delay function. Of
course, the platform also uses a consensus algorithm to help secure the network which is the
Proof of Stake (PoS). Solana’s speed and low transaction fee have attracted numerous developers
to the Blockchain. A wide range of dApps and smart contract projects are now deployed on
the Solana project. Thus, making it one of the most widely-used Blockchains and
cryptocurrencies in the world.

Law

BSP has installed a reliable platform that protects crypto customers and also encourages Bitcoin
uptake, which is still in a nascent stage. BSP also launched a new security framework that
protects Cryptocurrency from being used in money laundering. Speaking about the
changes, Melchor Plabasan, Technology Risk and Innovation Supervision Director of BSP,
pointed out that the use of crypto has revolutionised remittances and payments as well as
opening up new fundraising opportunities.
As of December 2020, BSP has also opened up channels with 17 virtual currency exchanges that
are industry compliant. Hence, buying of Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana is
purely legal and acknowledged by the Philippine government.

Market demand and opportunities:

Customers

Solana is a platform for decentralized finance applications and other smart contracts. On it,
people can borrow, trade, lend and leverage crypto assets. The network is for building
cryptocurrencies just like ethereum and bitcoin. The only difference between Solana and
Ethereum is the former’s high speed of transactions. SOL being the new fame blockchain
network can perform 65,000 TPS at its full capacity.

Market Opportunities Offered

● Day Trading - the act of speculating on cryptocurrencies price movements via a CFD
trading account, or buying and selling the underlying coins via an exchange.

● Scalping – a trading style that specializes in protfiting off of small price changes and
making a fast profit off reselling.

● Positional trading – a popular long-term trading strategy that allows individual traders to
hold a position for a long period of time, which is usually months or years. Position
traders ignore short-term price movements and prefer to rely on more precise
fundamental analysis and long-term trends.

● Staking – the process of locking up crypto holdings in order to obtain rewards or earn
interest.

● DeFi Lending – crypto loans in a trustless manner, without intermediaries and allow users
to enlist their crypto coins on the platform for lending purposes. A borrower can directly
take a loan through the decentralized platform known as P2P lending.
Suppliers

Solana doesn’t have suppliers since suppliers aren’t necessary and applicable in the
cryptocurrency world. Rather, they have a circulating supply which is currently at 301,074,409.

Distributors

The distribution of Solana tokens (SOL) can be bought through centralized and decentralized
exchanges. Also, SOL’s are being distributed to stake-holders, validator nodes, and miners as
rewards. Some well-known centralized and decentralized exchanges are listed below:

 Binance
 CryptoDotCom
 PancakeSwap
 UniSwap
 SushiSwap
 Kraken
 Coins.Ph
Cost of doing Business

Solana’s initial crowdfund project by selling project tokens was able to raise the price of SOL
token from $0.22 to $208 – a 95,000% increase.

Production and Operations

As one of the most performant permissionless blockchains in the world, the network has 200
physically distinct nodes supporting a throughput of more than 50,000 - 65,000 TPS when
running with GPUs. One of the biggest challenges with distributed systems is the agreement in
time.

Unlike Bitcoin that uses the PoW algorithm as a decentralized clock for the system, Solana uses
a Proof of History method. With Proof of History, you are able to create historical records that
prove that an event occurs during a specific moment in time. The algorithm is a high frequency
Verifiable Delay Function. This function requires a specific number of sequential steps to
evaluate.

Transactions or events that are evaluated will be given an unique hash and a count that can be
publicly and effectively verified. The count allows us to know when each transaction or event
occurred, functioning like a cryptographic time-stamp. Within every node there is also a
cryptographic clock that keeps track of the network’s time and the ordering of events. This
allows high throughput and more efficiency within the Solana network.
How it really affects the business?

The SOL token is the native currency in Solana’s ecosystem. So the token can pass to nodes
within the Solana cluster in exchange for running on-chain programs or validating its output.
Another use for SOL, is to perform micropayments known as lamports. The current circulating
supply of SOL is 26 million. The maximum supply of SOL caps at 489 million SOL. SOL also
has additional use cases, you can stake the token to earn additional rewards. So Staking is a good
way for users to earn profit if they are just looking to hold their tokens. The process of staking is
quite simple, it is as follows:

1. Transfer tokens to a wallet that supports staking

2. Create a staking account
3. Select a validator from Solana’s validators
4. Delegate your stake to the validator

Serum has been quite hot in the news growing 1500% since its IEO. The main reason why Serum
chose to build on Solana is because it offers the best of both centralized and decentralized
worlds. It allows exchanges to be resistant to censorship, noncustodial, inexpensive and highly
liquid. This is only achievable with Solana as it allows Serum to run on a on-chain central limit
order book that updates every 400 milliseconds. Solana allows Serum to achieve one of the
lowest latency and gas costs, hence, making it revolutionary. Solana solves the many traditional
issues that earlier blockchain technology experiences. Solana displays a new structure for
verifying transactions and a more efficient consensus algorithm. The platform will definitely be a
strong competitor with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Solana displays the fast advancements in the
crypto industry in just mere 10 years. The platform will definitely be something to look out for as
it continues to develop.
B. Industry and Competitor Analysis

Competitors

1. Ethereum - Ethereum has 125 employees and is ranked 3rd among its top 10 competitors
and is open access to digital money and data-friendly services for everyone – no matter
your background or location. 30 July 2015 was the Initial release date of Ethereum. It
was a Switzerland-based blockchain company, It's the technology that powers the
cryptocurrency ether (ETH) and thousands of other apps available today. Ethereum is the
second most valuable cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization.
Cardano has a market value of more than $69 billion dollars, whereas Ethereum has a
market capitalization of more than $415 billion dollars. Both of these companies would
be called large-cap stocks in the stock market based only on market capitalization. The
market capitalization of Ethereum, on the other hand, is roughly four times that of
Cardano. On their separate blockchains, both provide smart contracts. They both operate
very similarly, but Cardano is more research driven while Ethereum aims to provide the
best security. Ethereum aims to provide the most robust and secure ecosystem of
decentralized applications and offers a much more usable platform due to the amount of
applications the network offers. And lastly Ethereum has also been around longer,
surviving several bear markets and reorganizations. Ethereum have Employees 477 (Oct
2021) and their Website Visits in Apr 2021 is 5.8 million. They reach over 1.7 million
followers. In six months, the number of followers has increased 7.8% month over month
and increased 12.6% quarter over quarter. Ethereum leads with 220 monthly active core
developers on average.

2. XRP – XRP has 548 employees (2020) is the digital currency that is created by the
company Ripple. It has gained a lot of attention, and it has piqued the curiosity of banks
and payment firms. In 2018, almost 100 banks joined the Ripple network. XRP is a
 digital asset of Ripple. XRP can settle transactions in almost 3-5 seconds and doesn’t
need any middlemen or intermediaries, which makes it quick and efficient. It takes use of
cutting-edge payment technology that makes it quicker, more scalable, and less
expensive. It's also a very reliable technology with a global decentralized network of
150+ validators. Ripple is an open-source platform and supports currency, commodities,
cryptocurrency, or other units of value. It’s free globally and doesn’t take any charges. It
was written in C++ language. It works with a variety of operating systems, including
Ubuntu, Windows, and Mac OS X. In compared to other cryptocurrencies, the transaction
time of XRP is quite short. It is one of the quickest and least expensive methods. While
Cardano has an Apache License the XRP (Ripple) has an ISC license. In 2020 they have
548 employees. As of now they have over 2.1million followers on twitter. Ripple has
2.12m Twitter Followers. The number of followers has increased 4.6% month over
month and increased 7.8% quarter over quarter. Ripple's latest funding round in
December 2019 was reported to be $200 m. In total, Ripple has raised $293.6 m.

3. ADA – ADA has 83 employees (2021) a third-generation, decentralized proof-of-

stake (PoS) blockchain platform designed to be a more efficient alternative to proof-of-
work (PoW) networks. Scalability, interoperability, and sustainability on PoW networks
like Ethereum are limited by the infrastructure burden of growing costs, energy use, and
slow transaction times. Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of the proof-of-work (PoW)
blockchain Ethereum, understood the implications of these challenges to blockchain
networks, and began developing Cardano and its primary cryptocurrency, ada, in 2015,
launching the platform and the ada token in 2017. The Cardano platform runs on the
Ouroboros consensus protocol. Ouroboros, created by Cardano in its foundation phase,
is the first PoS protocol that not only was proved to be secure, but also was the first to be
informed by scholarly academic research. Each development phase, or era, in the
Cardano roadmap is anchored by the research-based framework, incorporating peer-
reviewed insights with evidence-based methods to make progress toward and achieve
the milestones related to the future directions of the use applications of both the
blockchain network and the ada token.
4. LINK – Chainlink has 86 employees Chainlink is a cryptocurrency aiming to incentivize
a global network of computers to provide reliable, real-world data to smart contracts
running on top of blockchains. If you’re unfamiliar, smart contracts are agreements
programmed to execute if and when certain conditions are met. To date, smart contracts
have been used for everything from creating novel crypto-financial products to
developing new crypto assets. However, an issue that has persisted is that most smart
contracts need to rely on some kind of external data source to properly execute their
terms. For example, smart contracts seeking to replicate bonds or insurance agreements
may need access to APIs reporting on market prices or Internet of Things data. Chainlink
was created to address this issue by incentivizing data providers (called “oracles”) to act
as a bridge between blockchain smart contracts and external data sources. Every oracle
within the Chainlink network is incentivized to provide accurate data since a reputation
score is assigned to each. Further, when nodes follow the software’s rules and provide
useful data, they are rewarded in Chainlink’s cryptocurrency, LINK. Arriving amid a
crowded field of projects in 2017, the Chainlink team has so far been able to deliver on
its vision, expanding efforts beyond Ethereum (ETH) amid a surge in market activity. As
of 2020, Chainlink is seeking to support all blockchain-based smart contract
networks. Users seeking to stay connected on the current development status of
Chainlink can follow its official project tracker for up-to-date details.
5. Algorand – ALGO has 40 total employees Algorand is a decentralized network built to
solve the blockchain trilemma of achieving speed, security, and decentralization
simultaneously. Launched in June 2019 by computer scientist and MIT professor Silvio
Micali, Algorand is a permissionless and open-source blockchain network upon which
anyone can build. Algorand is designed to be a payments-focused network with rapid
transactions and a strong focus on achieving near-instant finality — that means
processing over 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) and achieving transaction finality in
less than five seconds. Algorand uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, and
distributes validator rewards to all holders of its native ALGO cryptocurrency. Through
strong throughput capacity and equitable community incentivization, Algorand is capable
of managing the high-throughput requirements of widespread global usage and a variety
of use cases. As a public smart contract blockchain that relies on staking, Algorand is
 currently capable of hosting decentralized application (dApp) development and providing
scalability. Rising gas fees on Ethereum have led many dApp developers and
decentralized finance (DeFi) traders to look for alternative blockchain solutions, with
some turning to Algorand as an Ethereum-alternative for dApp development and DeFi
applications.

Porter’s Five Force Framework

Threats of New Entrants- Threat of Substitute

Rivalry among existing Firms

Bargaining Power of Buyers Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Rivalry among Existing Firms

● Cardano provides a decentralized public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is

fully open source. The Cardano founding date is 2016. Cardano is a decentralised public
blockchain project that claims to develop a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver
more advanced features than other any protocol previously developed”, as stated on their
website (Cardano, 2019). It is based on scientific research, peerreview and academic
validation of its technology. Its transaction throughput is on par with Ethereum.
● Ethereum is a platform and a programming language that helps developers to build and
publish distributed applications. The Ethereum founding date is 2014

● LINK – Chainlink has 86 employees Chainlink is a cryptocurrency aiming to incentivize

a global network of computers to provide reliable, real-world data to smart contracts
running on top of blockchains.
● Algorand uses a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, and distributes validator
rewards to all holders of its native ALGO cryptocurrency. Through strong throughput
capacity and equitable community incentivization, Algorand is capable of managing the
high-throughput requirements of widespread global usage and a variety of use cases.
● XRP can settle transactions in almost 3-5 seconds and doesn’t need any middlemen or
intermediaries, which makes it quick and efficient. It takes use of cutting-edge payment
technology that makes it quicker, more scalable, and less expensive. It's also a very
reliable technology with a global decentralized network of 150+ validators. Ripple is an
open-source platform and supports currency, commodities, cryptocurrency, or other units
of value.

All of these blockchain networks offer decentralized finance (De-Fi), liquidity pools, staking,
and mining.

Threats of New Entrants

Solana’s biggest threat as of today is the layer-2 solution of Bitcoin called Lightning Network
(LN) which was just updated this year and is now capable of catering 4 Million TPS. The LN sits
as the second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, enabling private payment channels to be
established between parties. This is seen as a method for enabling cheaper and faster payments,
while still ultimately retaining the security and anonymity of the Bitcoin layer 1.

Bargaining power of Suppliers

Solana has a total supply of 508,383,604. It’s pressure is on the token release schedule which is
inflationary. The current circulating supply of SOL tokens is 302,512,565. There is no data
regarding its max supply unlike other deflationary tokens like Bitcoin which has 21 million. This
adds pressure to the market value of the SOL token since it’s supply is most probably will be
unlimited.

Bargaining power of Buyer

- Everyone can join (just look at the amount of ICOs launched every day) and obtaining a
banking license is easier than ever (at least in the US, EU and the UK) (threat of new
entrants).
- Customers are in control and decide which currency to buy and pay with – without any
middlemen activity. Look, for example, at the amount of wallet providers out there
(power of buyers)
- Direct payment solutions and crypto currencies are the substitute for traditional banking
solutions and FIAT currencies (threat of substitutes)
- Because of all above mentioned reasons, rivalry is bigger than ever, allowing for a
healthy market place of supply and demand (degree of rivalry)

Threats of Substitute

The customer always buys the best. They want world class services at the lowest price. A new
generation of customers keep switching cost very low and keep multiple vendors for their big
projects. In IT products and services, finding a substitute is easy. Till now company X is getting
competitive advantage of skills and technology. It must be maintained by deploying the up-to-
date resources.
Other emerging offshore locations like the Philippines, China, and Eastern Europe are offering
more cost advantages and creating threats for projects from the Asian region. Price quoted for
projects are the differentiators for the same quality of projects and services.

Major drivers of changes and their possible impact

Long Term Industry Growth

There's also no guarantee that a crypto project you invest in will succeed. Competition is fierce
among thousands of blockchain projects, and projects that are no more than scams are also
prevalent in the crypto industry. Only a small number of cryptocurrency projects will ultimately
flourish.

Regulators may also crack down on the entire crypto industry, especially if governments begin to
strongly view cryptocurrencies as a threat rather than just an innovative technology.

And, with cryptocurrencies being based on cutting-edge technology, that also increases the risks
for investors. Much of the tech is still being developed and is not yet extensively proven in real-
world scenarios.

Many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are launched with lofty objectives, which may
be achieved over long time horizons. While the success of any cryptocurrency project is not
assured, if a cryptocurrency project achieves it goals, then early investors could be richly
rewarded over the long term.

For any cryptocurrency project, however, achieving widespread adoption is necessary to be

considered a long-term success.

Ether is the native coin of the Ethereum platform and can be purchased by investors wishing to
gain portfolio exposure to Ethereum. While Bitcoin can be viewed as digital gold, Ethereum is
building a global computing platform that supports many other cryptocurrencies and a massive
ecosystem of decentralized applications ("dapps").

The large number of cryptocurrencies built on the Ethereum platform, combined with the open-
source nature of dapps, creates opportunities for Ethereum to also benefit from the network
effect and to create sustainable, long-term value. The Ethereum platform enables the use of
"smart contracts," which execute automatically based on terms written directly into the contracts'
code.

The Ethereum network collects Ether from users in exchange for executing smart contracts.
Smart contract technology has significant potential to disrupt massive industries, such as real
estate and banking, and also to create entirely new markets.

As the Ethereum platform becomes increasingly used worldwide, the Ether token increases in
utility and value. Investors bullish on the long-term potential of the Ethereum platform can profit
directly by owning Ether.

Buyer/Customer composition, characteristics and preferences

Financial activities is intimately connected to the observed market dynamics. Despite many
existing theories and studies on the fundamental motivations of the behavior of humans in
financial systems, there is still limited empirical deduction of the behavioral compositions of the
financial agents from a detailed market analysis. Blockchain technology has provided an avenue
for the latter investigation with its voluminous data and its transparency of financial transactions.
It has enabled us to perform empirical inference on the behavioral patterns of users in the market,
which we explore in the bitcoin and ethereum cryptocurrency markets. In our study, we first
determine various properties of the bitcoin and ethereum users by a temporal complex network
analysis. After which, we develop methodology by combining k-means clustering and Support
Vector Machines to derive behavioral types of users in the two cryptocurrency markets.
Interestingly, we found four distinct strategies that are common in both markets: optimists,
pessimists, positive traders and negative traders. The composition of user behavior is remarkably
different between the bitcoin and ethereum market during periods of local price fluctuations and
large systemic events. We observe that bitcoin (ethereum) users tend to take a short-term (long-
term) view of the market during the local events. For the large systemic events, ethereum
(bitcoin) users are found to consistently display a greater sense of pessimism (optimism) towards
the future of the market.

Product Innovation
Solana is but one competitor in a world of decentralized app platforms, each with its strengths
and weaknesses. It shows a lot of promise, has a burgeoning app ecosystem, and continued
support from FTX and some of the biggest venture capitalists in the space. It has a long way to
go to catch up with Ethereum, but it's well positioned to grab a decent share of the decentralized
apps market. Anyone who's interested in decentralized apps and the blockchain space should at
least dip their toes and try Solana out.

Solana was introduced as a layer 1 solution with the ultimate aim of becoming the fastest, most
secure, and most scalable solution in the crypto world. Most of the blockchain developers had
attempted to solve the issues of low transaction speed and the high transaction cost by staying
within the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) architecture, while the Solana team started to
develop a solution out of the traditional architecture.

It is backed by a solid team including technicians from leading companies like Apple, Google,
Intel, and Microsoft. The CEO, Anatoly Yakovenko being a former software engineer in
Qualcomm and Dropbox, makes the team behind Solano much stronger.

Solana leverages several innovative techniques to scale as a layer 1 blockchain. It promises to

maintain a minimal transaction fee for all the users. Another notable feature is that Solana aims
to achieve these without the use of shards or layer 2 upgrades (sharding is a way of distributing
the workload off the main network to other networks).

Speed

Solana possesses a blazing speed of 50,000 transactions per second, which is gigantic compared
to other blockchain systems. It creates a block every 400 milliseconds. ETH 2.0 aims to achieve
higher transaction speeds through sharding (parallel processing using multiple chains — shards),
but the target rate is expected to fall below Solana’s rate.
Security

Solana’s validators spanned across the world. As of now (September 2021), the network has over
990 validators who make sure the network is secure. An interesting feature of this network is that
anyone can become a validator with any amount of stake.

There are 8 key innovations that make the Solana network one of the most performant
permissionless blockchain systems in the world. Each of them is explained below:

Proof-of-History — A clock before consensus

Solana’s team has identified that if they were able to trust the timestamp encoded into a message,
a huge optimization could be achieved in the blockchain system. The major drawback of this
concept was the fact that the nodes in a blockchain system cannot rely on an external source of
time or any timestamp that appears on a network message. Solana was able to address this issue
by using an interesting concept called Proof-of-history. This suggests the use of proofs to
establish the order of event occurrence, rather than solely trusting on a timestamp.

Cost and Efficiency

Solana’s claims of offering superior scalability as compared to Ethereum seem misleading when
you consider how roughly 80% of Solana’s transactions are the chain’s own consensus messages
required simply to coordinate validators. These processes are typically handled separately from
on-chain transactions via a distinct communications channel but are inexplicably bundled with
user transactions on Solana’s blockchain.

Examining the transaction numbers demonstrates this illusion. The much-ballyhooed number of
400,000 TPS is simply the amount of transactions that were attempted by bots. As for the
transactions actually being written to the chain, that was approximately 2,000 TPS of which up
to 350 TPS s are actual user transactions and the rest were validator consensus messages

Solana’s normal speed is about 2,000 TPS of which 80% are consensus messages, not the user or
smart contract transactions that networks like Ethereum can process at speeds of 15 TPS or
higher offered by other networks.
In addition to the concern of exponential increase in consensus messaging as the network grows,
Solana lacks any form of prioritization rules being set which would have ensured better handling
of critical consensus message processing in scenarios when the transaction queue gets flooded.
Instead, at such times, such consensus messages would be displaced leading to a lack of syncing
between the validator nodes and likely a growing amount of consensus rollbacks further
congesting the network. Based on the tweets that emanated from Solana’s official account’s post
about the outage, it seems likely that they will pursue prioritizing network-critical consensus
messaging over user transactions as opposed to creating a separate blockchain consensus
channel. The latter solution offers the more conducive approach that would create a distinct
communication channel between validators that cannot be interrupted by user transactions and
doesn’t require prioritizing messages–which risks introducing centralization of BFT–instead and
ensure recurrence prevention instead of the “quick-fix” approach that seems intended.

Technology Development

Solana combines Proof-of-Stake with Proof-of-History (PoH), giving it a unique hybrid

consensus algorithm. PoH ensures that a blockchain is very fast but at the same time keeps its
security decentralized.

All Solana events and transactions are hashed with the SHA256 hash function. Using this
function, Solana takes an input and produces a unique output that is extremely difficult to
predict. Solana takes the output of a transaction and uses it as input for the next hash. The
sequence of transactions is now built into the hashed output.

This hashing process creates a long, unbroken chain of hashed transactions. This characteristic
creates a clear, verifiable sequence of transactions that a validator adds to a block, without the
need for a conventional timestamp. Hashing also takes a certain time to complete, meaning that
validators can easily check how much time has passed.

It may be difficult to imagine the exact way Proof-of-History works. Therefore, we show you
how it works by illustrating this with an example.

So, for example, we have three transactions, A, B and C. Solana executes each of these
transactions in order through its consensus protocol, Proof-of-History. PoH takes as input the
transaction and the internal clock that objectively measures the order of the transactions, so it
goes as follows (example from anycoindirect.eu)

PoH(A, time stamp 0) -> hash: encrypted version of A on time stamp 0

PoH(B, time stamp 1) -> hash: encrypted version of B on time stamp 1

PoH(C, time stamp 2) -> hash: encrypted version of C on time stamp 2

Since everything is fixed in time stamps, this provides an objective measure. This includes the
fact that each transaction took place, as well as the order in which each transaction took place. If
transaction B were to be input at time stamp 0, the entire blockchain would be affected.

Proof-of-History has great potential. But as with any consensus algorithm, there are also
drawbacks, and that also applies to PoH. If you want to participate as a validator at Solana, your
hardware must meet strict requirements (read: specifications). If you do not meet these
requirements, you are excluded from the consensus. This limits Solana's decentralization
considerably. Because looking at a Proof-of-Stake validator, any standard computer equipment
will do, allowing everyone to participate in the consensus, thus much more decentralized.

Whereas transaction speeds are a major advantage of Solana, they are also a hindrance in some
respects. The tens of thousands of transactions generate enormous amounts of data. 1 transaction
is about 250kb. 50,000 TPS of 250kb equals about 40 petabytes of data per year. That is a
tremendously high amount of data and many companies, let alone private individuals, cannot
store this amount of data. So a solution must be found for this in the future.

Others like marketing innovation, changing societal concerns and regulatory influences

In recent years, cryptocurrency—and in particular, Bitcoin—has demonstrated its value, now

boasting 14 million Bitcoins in circulation. Investors speculating in the future possibilities of this
new technology have driven most of the current market capitalization, and this is likely to remain
the case until a certain measure of price stability and market acceptance is achieved. Apart from
the declared price of cryptocurrency, those invested in it appear to be relying on a perceived
“inherent value” of cryptocurrency. This includes the technology and network itself, the integrity
of the cryptographic code and the decentralized network.

The blockchain public ledger technology (which underlies cryptocurrency) has the potential to
disrupt a wide variety of transactions, in addition to the traditional payments system. These
include stocks, bonds and other financial assets for which records are stored digitally and for
which currently there is a need for a trusted third party to provide verification of the transaction.

In our view, the cryptocurrency market will develop at a pace set by the key participants,
characterized by likely growth spurts of legitimacy from one or more of these participants in
what we call “credentialising moments.” For the market to reach the next phase in its evolution
toward mainstream acceptance and stable expansion, each of the five key market participants—
merchants and consumers, tech developers, investors, financial institutions and regulators—will
play a role.

How anonymous is it?

On the one hand, cryptocurrency is entirely anonymous. On the other, it is completely
transparent and trackable.

It is anonymous in the sense that you can hold a crypto address without revealing anything about
your identity in that address. One person could hold multiple addresses, and in theory, there
would be nothing to link those addresses together, or to indicate that the person owned them.

Sending and receiving virtual currency is like writing under a pseudonym. If an author’s
pseudonym is ever linked to their identity, everything they ever wrote under that pseudonym will
be linked to them.

In the original Bitcoin whitepaper, it was actually recommended that users use a new address for
each transaction, to avoid them being linked to a common owner.
“As an additional firewall, a new (address) should be used for each transaction to keep them
from being linked to a common owner… The risk is that if the owner of a (address) is revealed,
linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.” - Satoshi Nakamoto,
Bitcoin Inventor

What does this mean?

Thanks to the way the algorithm is structured, everything that happens in the Bitcoin world is
trackable.

This leads to a level of transparency that may surprise some users; if a Bitcoin address was
published on someone’s website for example, everyone in the world would be able to find that
person’s balance.

In Bitcoin, your pseudonym is the address to which you receive currency. As every transaction
involving that address is stored in the blockchain, if your address is ever linked to your identity,
every transaction will be linked to you.

Because all transactions are permanent and public, a massive map is being created as time goes
on that allows analytical tools to paint a picture of where bitcoins are going. Bitcoin addresses
are ‘anonymous’, but if an address can be linked to a real-world identity, Bitcoin offers no
privacy. There are a number of ways to connect addresses to real-world identities, typically via
KYC & AML policies at exchanges and blockchain analysis.

‘Unlinkability’ has to be achieved for complete anonymity. However, recent studies show that
real-life identities can be linked to addresses of these cryptocurrencies and transactions which
use them. Therefore, it is safe to say that most cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous rather than
anonymous.
Regulatory:

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has published a FAQ’s section in their website regarding
Cryptocurrency. BSP has installed a reliable platform that protects crypto customers and also
encourages Bitcoin uptake, which is still in a nascent stage. BSP also launched a new security
framework that protects Cryptocurrency from being used in money laundering. Speaking about
the changes, Melchor Plabasan, Technology Risk and Innovation Supervision Director of BSP,
pointed out that the use of crypto has revolutionised remittances and payments as well as
opening up new fundraising opportunities

External Factors Execution (EFE) Matrix

Key External Factors Weight Rating Weighted Score

Opportunities
- Competitive 0.24 2 0.48
advantage with other
leading blockchain
competitors

- Improvement of 0.09 1 0.09

“slashing” for
validator nodes

- Possibility to 0.11 3 0.33

address new markets
(property
ownership/sharing,
storage rental,
 logistics, etc.)

- Can be listed on 0.10 1 0.10

more centralized
exchanges

Threats
- Might be perceived 0.12 2 0.24
as unsecure and
unreliable for some
who may be still
illiterate with
blockchain
technology

- Possible usage in 0.14 3 0.42

criminal scenarios
(black market, dark
web)

- Very active 0.17 4 0.68

community might
become a nightmare
for programmers
since it can lead to
Mainnet (website)
crashes

- Volatility in the 0.03 2 0.06

price value of SOL
tokens
Total: 1 - 2.40
2.40 = The weighted score of Solana when it comes to maximizing opportunities and battling
against threats is below average.

D. Competitors Analysis

Product Innovation – Proof of History is a cryptographic proof of the relative order and time of
each message in the historical record. This allows the network to ignore local clocks and
gradually accommodate all potential network delays as the data structure is eventually delivered
and re-assembled. This is why Solana is able to push the limits of confirmation times so that the
network provides as effective of an experience as a centralized system without sacrificing security
or decentralization.

However, Proof of History isn’t necessary for a permission-less blockchain. There are plenty of
Proof of Stake-based networks being built without it. What Proof of History — or PoH — adds to
the network is a source of objectivity. It allows validators on the network to compute the state of
the network from the ledger itself. Based on what validation messages are present in the ledger, a
validator can decide if any node is considered up (valid) or down (invalid), and if the network has
submitted a sufficient amount of votes for the ledger to be considered valid. Messages are not
required to arrive at any given validator in a timely manner. The ledger eventually arrives to every
validator, and because the messages are part of the ledger, PoH provides the cryptographic
guarantee that the messages were created when they claim.

This property allows us to optimize the network across multiple parameters, particularly in
regards to block time, an essential element of blockchain infrastructure in regards to speed and
efficiency. In addition to Block Time, PoH allows Solana to optimize for block propagation
(log200(n)), throughput (50K-80K TPS)), and ledger storage (petabytes) available on the network.

Identify and describe your major competitors. If there are too many, select and name only a few
(about two or five) and explain why you choose to focus on these competitors. Prepare a
comparative summary of financial indicators of your company and its competitors for the past
year.

Ethereum - Ethereum has 125 employees and is ranked 3rd among its top 10 competitors and is
open access to digital money and data-friendly services for everyone – no matter your
background or location. 30 July 2015 was the Initial release date of Ethereum. It was a
Switzerland-based blockchain company, It's the technology that powers the cryptocurrency ether
(ETH) and thousands of other apps available today. Ethereum is the second most valuable
cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization. Cardano has a market value of
more than $69 billion dollars, whereas Ethereum has a market capitalization of more than $415
billion dollars. Both of these companies would be called large-cap stocks in the stock market
based only on market capitalization. The market capitalization of Ethereum, on the other hand, is
roughly four times that of Cardano. On their separate blockchains, both provide smart contracts.
They both operate very similarly, but Cardano is more research driven while Ethereum aims to
provide the best security. Ethereum aims to provide the most robust and secure ecosystem of
decentralized applications and offers a much more usable platform due to the amount of
applications the network offers. And lastly Ethereum has also been around longer, surviving
several bear markets and reorganizations. Ethereum have Employees 477 (Oct 2021) and their
Website Visits in Apr 2021 is 5.8 million. They reach over 1.7 million followers. In six months,
the number of followers has increased 7.8% month over month and increased 12.6% quarter over
quarter. Ethereum leads with 220 monthly active core developers on average.

XRP – XRP has 548 employees (2020) is the digital currency that is created by the company
Ripple. It has gained a lot of attention, and it has piqued the curiosity of banks and payment
firms. In 2018, almost 100 banks joined the Ripple network. XRP is a digital asset of Ripple.
XRP can settle transactions in almost 3-5 seconds and doesn’t need any middlemen or
intermediaries, which makes it quick and efficient. It takes use of cutting-edge payment
technology that makes it quicker, more scalable, and less expensive. It's also a very reliable
technology with a global decentralized network of 150+ validators. Ripple is an open-source
platform and supports currency, commodities, cryptocurrency, or other units of value. It’s free
globally and doesn’t take any charges. It was written in C++ language. It works with a variety of
operating systems, including Ubuntu, Windows, and Mac OS X. In compared to other
cryptocurrencies, the transaction time of XRP is quite short. It is one of the quickest and least
expensive methods. While Cardano has an Apache License the XRP (Ripple) has an ISC license.
In 2020 they have 548 employees. As of now they have over 2.1million followers on twitter.
Ripple has 2.12m Twitter Followers. The number of followers has increased 4.6% month over
month and increased 7.8% quarter over quarter. Ripple's latest funding round in December 2019
was reported to be $200 m. In total, Ripple has raised $293.6 m.

ADA – ADA has 83 employees (2021) a third-generation, decentralized proof-of-stake (PoS)

blockchain platform designed to be a more efficient alternative to proof-of-work (PoW)
networks. Scalability, interoperability, and sustainability on PoW networks like Ethereum are
limited by the infrastructure burden of growing costs, energy use, and slow transaction times.
Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of the proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain Ethereum,
understood the implications of these challenges to blockchain networks, and began developing
Cardano and its primary cryptocurrency, ada, in 2015, launching the platform and the ada token
in 2017. The Cardano platform runs on the Ouroboros consensus protocol. Ouroboros, created
by Cardano in its foundation phase, is the first PoS protocol that not only was proved to be
secure, but also was the first to be informed by scholarly academic research. Each development
phase, or era, in the Cardano roadmap is anchored by the research-based framework,
incorporating peer-reviewed insights with evidence-based methods to make progress toward and
achieve the milestones related to the future directions of the use applications of both the
blockchain network and the ada token.

LINK – Chainlink has 86 employees Chainlink is a cryptocurrency aiming to incentivize a global

network of computers to provide reliable, real-world data to smart contracts running on top
of blockchains. If you’re unfamiliar, smart contracts are agreements programmed to execute if
and when certain conditions are met. To date, smart contracts have been used for everything
from creating novel crypto-financial products to developing new crypto assets.
However, an issue that has persisted is that most smart contracts need to rely on some kind of
external data source to properly execute their terms. For example, smart contracts seeking to
replicate bonds or insurance agreements may need access to APIs reporting on market prices or
Internet of Things data. Chainlink was created to address this issue by incentivizing data
 providers (called “oracles”) to act as a bridge between blockchain smart contracts and external
data sources. Every oracle within the Chainlink network is incentivized to provide accurate data
since a reputation score is assigned to each. Further, when nodes follow the software’s rules and
provide useful data, they are rewarded in Chainlink’s cryptocurrency, LINK. Arriving amid a
crowded field of projects in 2017, the Chainlink team has so far been able to deliver on its vision,
expanding efforts beyond Ethereum (ETH) amid a surge in market activity. As of 2020,
Chainlink is seeking to support all blockchain-based smart contract networks. Users seeking to
stay connected on the current development status of Chainlink can follow its official project
tracker for up-to-date details.

Evaluate your competitors and your company vis-a-vis the Key Success Factors identified
earlier. Do a Competitive Profile matrix and explain the ratings.

COMPETITIVE PROFILE MATRIX

Solana Ethereum Cardano XRP LINK

Key Success Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score Rating Score
Factor Weight

Product 0.20 4 0.8 3 0.6 4 0.8 3 0.6 4 0.8

Quality

Distribution 0.19 4 0.45 3 0.45 3 0.45 3 0.45 4 0.6

Technology 0.18 4 0.64 4 0.64 4 0.64 3 0.48 4 0.64

Customers 0.16 3 0.54 3 0.60 3 0.54 3 0.54 3 0.54

Legality 0.15 3 0.36 2 0.24 1 0.12 1 0.12 2 0.24

Pricing 0.12 3 0.57 3 0.57 3 0.57 3 0.57 3 0.58

Total 1 3.36 3.10 3.12 2.76 3.40

Chapter 5 – Company Analysis

1.1 Marketing

Solana is rewarding community members with exclusive access, potential funding, and free
Solana swag via the Solana Collective. As of the time of writing, Solana has 40 active members
and has received over 100 applications across 32 different countries since starting the program.
Solana conduct Blockchain technology education podcasts to educate the public. Along with this
is the Solana validator blog series which highlights validators within the community each week
to help them grow their brand. Solana also offer grant and mentorship program s. Solana also
conducts incentivized Testnet program to both grow the validator ecosystem and on-board new
validators into the network. Bi-weekly, Solana meets with the validator community for general
Q&A and project updates. No doubt Solana is one of the most community-engaging Crypto
companies in the industry. This attracts new investors and traders.

Solana currently have regional community marketing strategies across the globe. A few of this
include:

- Hosting local events with validator partners in Russia.

- Translating all Solana materials from English to Chinese and constantly delivering
consistent media coverage by with partners including Chainnews and Blockbeats in
China.
- Maintaining Naver blog for potential investors with translated blog posts and
delivering consistent coverage in Coin Cat Media, CC TV News, Decenter, and more
in South Korea.
- Running a Japanese Medium account with translated blog posts for researchers and
producing consistent news and updates in popular Japanese media like CoinChoice in
Japan.
- Building out a dedicated Telegram for the Indonesian and Vietnamese community in
Southeast Asia.
Future international marketing strategies of Solana include:

- Continuing to provide an engaging Blockchain-focused podcast with top industry

experts and thought leaders.
- Providing office, space ads, funding, and mentoring to strong candidates within the
Solana Ecosystem.
- Expanding the reach of the Solana Collective by organizing giveaways and
competitions for local Blockchain enthusiasts to promote the project.
- Hosting hackathons.
- Having media appearances and interviews with Korean press using prior
relationships.
- Hosting virtual events.

Increase in need for operational efficiency and transparency in financial payment systems, rise in
demand for remittances in developing countries, increase in data security, and improved market
cap are the major factors that drive the growth of the global cryptocurrency market. Moreover,
high implementation cost and lack of awareness of cryptocurrency among the people in
developing nations hamper the cryptocurrency market growth. Furthermore, increase in demand
for cryptocurrency among banks, and financial institutions and untapped potential on emerging
economies are expected to provide lucrative opportunity for the market expansion during the
forecast period. The hardware segment acquired major cryptocurrency market share owing to
rise in need for upgrading the performance of the software and to enhance the efficiency of
financial payment tools. However, the software segment is expected to grow at the highest rate
during the cryptocurrency market forecast period, as it facilitates to manage the massive volume
of data being generated for meaningful insights and better-informed decisions.

By region, the cryptocurrency market was dominated by Asia-Pacific in 2020, and is expected to
retain its position during the forecast period. Owing to increase in number of Bitcoin exchange
across Asia, which bring a certain healthy competition and maturity to the cryptocurrency
industry. Chinese banks are hiring blockchain experts as the government pushes the use of the
technology behind bitcoin to increase transparency and combat fraud in its financial sector.
These factors drive growth of the cryptocurrency market in the region.
The report focuses on the growth prospects, restraints, and trends of the global crtyptocurrency
market analysis. The study provides Porter’s five forces analysis to understand the impact of
various factors such as bargaining power of suppliers, competitive intensity of competitors,
threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and bargaining power of buyers on the global
cryptocurrency market.

The COVID-19 pandemic has a negative impact on the cryptocurrency market, owing to the
level of stability in cryptocurrency has significantly diminished while the irregularity level
significantly augmented and cryptocurrencies became more volatile, which is set to decline the
demand for cryptocurrency during global health crisis. Moreover, cryptocurrency exhibits a low
level of regularity compared to international equity markets, which further declines the demand
for cryptocurrency tremendously during the pandemic situation.

1.2 Operations

1. Solana’s Blockchain is one of the emerging technologies focusing on the prospect of the
blockchain future development and the process design in the enterprise management.
However, there are relatively few studies on the role and problems of blockchain in the
actual operation of enterprises using empirical data. From the theoretical analysis,
blockchain can reduce information transparency nand transaction costs, while improving
trust between enterprises and their efficiency to enhance enterprise performance.
However, we find a negative correlation between the application of blockchain and
enterprise performance, which is inconsistent with the expectation of blockchain theory.
We explore the deep reasons and find that the main reason for the above effect lies in the
adverse selection behavior of enterprises. The application of blockchain complies with
the policy of the Chinese government and future technical direction. Therefore,
enterprises can use blockchain as a kind of conceptual hyping method. The companies
disclosing blockchain in annual reports will earn more stock returns and increase stock
turnover. Therefore, the companies with worse performance are more likely to use
blockchain technology to improve their reputation and turn around their operating
conditions. However, these enterprises may not be suitable to use blockchain technology
or do not make full use of blockchain. They even do not increase investment and R&D
expenditure to develop blockchain applications. Their behaviors of adverse selection are
 serious. In addition, the inherent operational defects of such enterprises have not been
solved, and the gains from adverse selection are temporary. In the long run, the market-
to-book ratio, government subsidies, and the income growth rate of such enterprises will
decline. The financial constraints will not be alleviated, and the corporate performance
will decrease further.

2 In addition, we also look for methods to alleviate the adverse selection of enterprises. From
the perspectives of the internal governance environment, firstly, a higher proportion of the
largest shareholder in a company can reduce the information asymmetry between managers
and shareholders, which can prevent executives from using blockchain to the hype for
compensation or promotion. Secondly, good earning quality can reduce the information
asymmetry between the company and outside investors and alleviate the company’s
blockchain hype for raising stock price. Thirdly, the private enterprises pay more attention to
the economic target of the company compared with state-owned enterprises, so their
behaviors of reverse selection are serious. When the corporate performance is poor, they tend
to relieve the economic pressure through the hype of blockchain. Investors should pay more
attention to private companies using blockchain. From the perspectives of the
macroeconomic environment, the blockchain can achieve trust among enterprises through
computer code. The effect of blockchain is better in the areas where the degree of
marketization is low. The law environment is poor, enterprises in such areas are more
inclined to hype with blockchain to attract investors and partners, and the motivation of
adverse selection is stronger; collaborators need to raise vigilant with these companies.

3 We consider that the development of China’s blockchain technology is still at an early stage.
Due to the government’s vigorous promotion and publicity, enterprises carry out blockchain
business too quickly. Some enterprises that are not suitable to use blockchain at the present
stage also carry out blockchain activities to attract investors. However, the blockchain does
not play its due effect, which leads to the reverse selection behavior. Only a few enterprises
can take advantage of blockchain to improve their performance. However, most enterprises’
performance decreases because of the unsuitable conditions. They do not reach their goals of
reducing financial constraints and raising revenue growth rate. Therefore, enterprises should
be more down to earth, should carry out blockchain business according to their transaction
 characteristics and economic strength, and do not hype blindly. In addition, because not all
enterprises disclosing blockchain business can make full use of blockchain to develop their
business, so investors should pay attention to the enterprises with decentralized ownership,
poor earning quality, private enterprises, and the enterprises in regions with a weak degree of
marketization and law environment, to avoid being confused by the blockchain hype and
investing blindly.

1.3

Solana’s Key metrics

Circulating Supply: 16,350,633

Current Total Supply: 488,634,933

Initial Total Supply: 500,000,000

*11,365,067 SOL Tokens are burnt and removed from the supply.

SOL asset use cases:

Staking: Solana is in the process of enabling inflation rewards for staking the SOL token in
exchange for powering and supporting the network.
Transaction fees: users can use the SOL token to pay for simple token transactions and smart-
contract executions on the network.

Governance: the SOL token will be used in governance voting in the future.

Solana’s token distribution is as follows:

- Seed Sale tokens comprise 16.23% of the total token supply.

- Founding Sale token comprise 12.92% of the total token supply.
- Validator Sale tokens comprise 5.18% of the total token supply.
- Strategic Sale tokens comprise 1.88% of the total token supply.
- CoinList Auction Sale tokens comprise 1.64% of the total token supply.
- Team token comprise 12.79% of the total token supply.
- Foundation tokens comprise 10.46% of the total token supply.
- Community tokens comprise 38.89% of the total token supply.

Solana’s Token governance and use of funds:

As of writing, Solana has used approximately 11.79MM USD (46.12%) of token sale funds,
according to the allocations below:

- 3.00% Partnerships
- 3.00% Marketing
- 35.00% Team
- 35.00% Development
- 12.00% Professional Services & Legal
- 3.00% Taxes
- 6.00% Office Rent
- 3.00% Others

A primary component of a crypto’s tokenomics is the supply of it. Now, there are three types of
supply you should check for when it comes to crypto. There’s the circulating supply, the total
supply, and the max supply. The circulating supply of a token is the number of tokens that have
been issued so far and are currently in circulation. The total token supply is the number of tokens
that exist at present, excluding any that might have gotten burned. And finally, the max supply of
a token is the maximum number of tokens that can ever be generated. For some tokens, there’s
no determined max supply. If you notice the circulating supply of a particular token has been
regularly increased by the project developers over time, you can assume that the value of the
token will be going up in the future. On the other hand, if there are too many tokens being
released at once or too frequently, the value of the token might go down. Make sure you know if
the token is inflationary or deflationary. An inflationary token (like fiat money) doesn’t have a
max supply and will continue to be produced as time goes on. A deflationary token model is
simply the opposite, where there’s a max supply the token is capped at, like Bitcoin’s 21
million. Most proof-of-stake tokens like ETH are inflationary so as to reward the validators and
delegators in the network. It’s notable that some crypto tokens also have a dual token model (like
MakerDAO’s MKR and DAI) where one token is used for funding within the ecosystem and the
other is a utility token. Tokenomics is an incredibly important concept for you to understand
when you’re trying to decide which crypto to invest in, since the factors included will definitely
affect your investment. But do keep in mind that you should also seek answers to some other
questions while trying to value a crypto. For instance, you should look for details regarding the
project’s team and the team members’ backgrounds (look for them on social media), the token’s
historical performance, its use cases, and if possible, data gained from technical analysis.

Solana has a circulating supply of 273 000 000 SOL, which means that 273 million SOL are
floating around on the open market, in smart contracts, or locked in staking. However, the total
supply is almost 500 million. This means that there will be a circulating supply of almost 500
million SOL at some point in the future.
This means that the inflation of 2020 was 8%, which lead to downward pressure on the price at
8%. However, this downward pressure decreases by 15% every year, leading to a decreasing
inflation rate over time. After a decade or so, the target inflation rate is 1.5%:
I think that this is a reasonable inflation rate. It’s a bit high initially, but this is to incentivize
staking and developing to get the ball rolling. The target of 1.5% is perfect for Solana. This
keeps the staking lucrative without having a large downward pressure on the price.
In summary, the tokenomics and decreasing inflation rate make Solana a good investment, at
least in the long term.

1.4 HUMAN RESOURCE AND MANAGEMENT

The Solana Foundation, a Swiss organization, owns Solana’s IP and will help set the broad
development direction for the network alongside. In the company’s website, a career page is
provided for the purpose of connecting Solana itself and its ecosystem employers with potential
employees. The career webpage defines the job profile and all the details to provide the
candidate the requirements and qualifications to secure a job at Solana and/or their ecosystem.
Solana mostly hire people who is involved in the information and technology industry since
Solana is a Blockchain company who is involved in deep programming methods

1.5 Logistics

Bitcoin, the earliest blockchain implementation, triggered widespread experimentation of

blockchain particularly in financial services. In 2015, Nasdaq and OMX Group Inc. worked with
a blockchain startup, Chain, to pilot and test blockchain technology for trading of shares in
Nasdaq Private Market.1 Visa Europe, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, RBS, and many of
the UK's high street banks have all announced that they are working on their own proof-of-
concepts using blockchain. As blockchain gains publicity, large corporations and startups are
exploring uses of the technology outside of the financial services industry. Many organizations
are already experimenting with blockchain innovations to fulfill a range of needs. Provenance, a
supply chain transparency start-up, recently completed a six-month pilot for tracking responsible
sourcing of tuna in Indonesia via blockchain. Monegraph, a startup launched in 2014, uses
blockchain to secure the usage and sharing rights of digital media such as video clips or brand-
sponsored content and enable sharing of revenue across the media creators, publishers, and
distributors. Skuchain builds blockchain-based B2B trade and supply chain finance products
targeted towards the $18 trillion global trade finance market that involves numerous entities
including buyers, sellers, logistics providers, banks, customs, and third parties. Blockchain
driven innovations in the supply chain will have the potential to deliver tremendous business
value by increasing supply chain transparency, reducing risk, and improving efficiency and
overall supply chain management.

1.6 Research and Development

Current issues with public blockchains don’t rely on time or make weak assumptions about
participants’ ability to maintain time. Each node relies on its own local clock without the
knowledge of the other participants’ clocks in the network. The lack of a trusted source of time
means that when a message timestamp is used to accept or reject a message, there is no guarantee
that every other participant in the network will make the same choice. The innovative PoH in
Solana is designed to create a ledger with the verifiable passage of time, i.e. duration between
events and message ordering. It is anticipated that every node in the network will be able to rely
on the recorded passage of time in the ledger without trust. The Proof of history allows nodes to
sync with a clock which reduces computational ability when syncing with other nodes. Solana
also scales at the rate of Moore’s law i.e after every 2 years the blockchain scales by default.
Solana recently raised a massive round ($314 million) of funding from big investors like
Andreessen Horowitz and many others.

1.7 Information and Technology

Proof of History differs from the current standard of blockchain infrastructure, which relies on a
sequential production of blocks that are hindered by waiting for confirmation across the network
before moving forward. Proof of History presents a fundamental move forward in the structure of
blockchain networks in regards to speed and capacity. With Solana, we are introducing a fourth
approach that results in a network that is never delayed. The Solana protocol has no dependencies
on local computer clocks or local timeouts between state transitions beyond the Verifiable Delay
Function. Instead, the VDF ensures that each block producer proves they have waited a sufficient
amount of time, and the network moves forward. Unlike Tendermint, the next block producer has
to locally generate a portion of the VDF until the scheduled slot. This means that receiving nodes
can begin state transition as soon as the message is received, because they have a cryptographic
proof that the producer obeyed the protocol delays. Moreover, the messages can arrive out of
order and the cost of network delays is gradually accommodated over the delivery of many
packets. Once PoH is reconstructed, the entire data structure guarantees that the appropriate
delays between all the block producers are correct.

Revenue/Sales and profits in the past years:

According to data from CryptoSlam, the secondary sales of Solana NFTs have generated a total
of approximately $497.7 million from approximately 348,000 transactions. The average price per
NFT was $1,500. The data shows that Solana had a record month in September for secondary
NFT sales volumes totaling $189.4 million. While Solana is seen by some as an “Ethereum
killer,” the Ethereum blockchain remains the most popular. Secondary sales on Ethereum were
surpassed by $2.2 billion that same month. Messari researcher Mason Nystrom exposed the data
via Twitter. He noted that while Ethereum is still by far the largest, the Solana network has
quickly established itself as one of the largest NFT blockchains in the world. CryptoSlam’s
ranking of the top NFT blockchains currently sees Solana ranked fourth in terms of 24-hour
secondary volume at $1.9 million. Leading the way are Ethereum ($37.7 million), Ronin ($23.5
million) and Wax ($4.5 million). Solana’s most popular NFT project is the Degenerate Ape
Academy. The project has generated $105.9 million in secondary sales since its launch in mid-
August. The Degenerate Ape NFTs show animated gorilla avatars with unique features. The
project has seen $454,000 in secondary sales in the past 24 hours. The good performance of the
network has caused the price of the Solana token to rise considerably. In the past 30 days, the
SOL price has risen more than 35% to a high of USD 240. Solana’s market cap is now around
$71.9 billion. As a result, it is now the third largest crypto currency in the world.
Market share and how the company’s growth compares vis-à-vis the other players;

As of the moment, Solana ranks #4 when it comes to market capitalization amounting to $73.08b

Company’s cost and cost structure:

On June 9, 2021, Solana Labs announced on Wednesday that it has completed a $314.15 million
private token sale, confirming reporting from earlier this week. The nine-figure sum is the
fourth-largest fundraising round in crypto history outside of initial coin offerings (ICOs). The
round was led by venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital, with
participation from Alameda Research, Blockchange Ventures, CMS Holdings, among others. In
return for their investments they received Solana blockchain’s native token, SOL, with a long-
term lockup period attached. Currently, SOL is trading at $43.35. Solana is a proof of stake
blockchain claiming to deliver both scalability and speed, two critical components for
mainstream adoption of decentralized products and applications (dApps). To date, Solana has
facilitated more than 19 billion on-chain transitions. “That’s the whole purpose of the space: it's
empowering everybody with cryptography so there’s no middleman anymore, it's just a super
connected network,” Founder and CEO of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, said. The millions raised
by Solana Labs will be used to create a venture investing arm, a trading desk dedicated to the
Solana ecosystem, and support the development of new decentralized applications with the goal
of drawing more people onto the blockchain and eventually reaching 1 billion users.

Company’s operating efficiencies:

The scalability problem has plagued many cryptocurrencies since almost day one. Blockchain
ledgers and decentralized payment networks provide decentralized security to users — but
usually, the more decentralized security they provide, the longer it can take for new transactions
to be verified and added to the blockchain. These networks are faced with the challenge of
providing ample transaction speed as their user count and transaction volume continues to
increase, while still preserving the security and decentralization of the network. When we talk
about scalability and throughput, we’re referring to how many transactions can take place per
second (this capability is called transactions per second (TPS)). With a high volume of
transactions occurring every second, time becomes a crucial element for efficiency. Each
computer (or node) processing transactions on a decentralized blockchain network has its own
internal clock on which it operates. With thousands of nodes all over the world, there are bound
to be slight discrepancies with local system clocks. This becomes problematic when the
decentralized network needs to reach consensus about which transactions have taken place and
the order in which they occurred. The timestamp synchronization problem is inherent in
both Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms.

When transactions occur, they are timestamped according to their local system clock. Then,
when other nodes verify the transactions, messages about their confirmation or rejection are also
timestamped. The inherent discrepancies between local system clocks (even those from nodes
acting in good faith) ultimately pave a path for attacks where bad actors can try to take over a
cryptocurrency network using fake transaction broadcasts that closely approximate real
timestamps — for example, “fake stake” (or “resource exhaustion”) attacks in the case of PoS,
and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks in the case of PoW. To ensure that transactions have not
been manipulated and that funds are spent only once, a lot of time and processing power needs to
be dedicated to verifying timestamp accuracy in a PoW or PoS system.
McKinsey 7-S

Structure
Solana’s system is decentralized. In a decentralized blockchain network, no one has to know or
trust anyone else. Each member in the network has a copy of the exact same data in the form of a
distributed ledger. If a member’s ledger is altered or corrupted in any way, it will be rejected by
the majority of the members in the network.

Style

The son of first-generation immigrants from the Soviet Union, Anatoly’s story is a powerful one,
a gritty, immigrant-to-inventor American journey. While it’s hard for him to explain to his
parents the details of his field, he knows that they are proud of his achievements. “It’s hard for
me to explain to them what I’m doing, because they don’t really know. They barely understand
how computers work, and what a decentralized computer is,” he said warmly. An engineer by
training, with a degree in computer science from the University of Illinois, Anatoly Yakovenko
was always interested in complex problem-solving through “simple math.” What may seem
simple to him, though, is not to the majority of people. So many are still trying to understand
what it is that decentralized finance does and what it really means.

Solana’s future is bright, but Anatoly defines his personal success as “the freedom to do
whatever it is that I want. That’s kind of more important than any measure of success. Getting to
a point where I have the option to spend the rest of my life surfing, or not, or continue building a
company. I think that’s really the cool thing about the United States,” he said. “You can really
come from anywhere and get to that point. You work hard, you get there, then you can just build
a life that is enjoyable and productive and full of passion, interest and excitement,” he explained.

Anatoly Yakovenko launched Solana four days after the March 12, 2020 stock market crash, a
moment when Bitcoin and the S&P 500 both crashed by 70%. On March 16, Solana was ready to
give it a go. “It was one interesting time because it was at the bottom of everyone’s
expectations,” he said.

The worst happened already, and from Anatoly’s perspective, “it seemed like the perfect time to
launch the business. Because there’s no way this crash is going to happen again.” So you kind of
have the opportunity to start at the bottom. “On the opportunity side, DeFi was just starting to
warm up. It just really felt like the opportunity was so good.”

Staff

The Solana Foundation list of Council Members:

Anatoly Yakovenko

Anatoly is one of the co-founders of Solana. He led the development of operating systems at
Qualcomm, distributed systems at Mesosphere, and compression at Dropbox. He holds 2 patents
for high performance Operating Systems protocols, and was a core kernel developer for BREW
which powered every CDMA flip phone (100m+ devices), and led development of tech that
made Project Tango (VR/AR) possible on Qualcomm phones.

Wolfgang Albrecht

Wolfgang is an entrepreneur and investor both in and outside the crypto sphere. He is a co-
founder of Staking Facilities, which strives to develop industry standards for convenient staking
with compelling project selection while retaining the highest security standards

James Prestwitch

James is a Cryptocurrency engineer and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Summa, where he

leads the on-chain services team. As part of his work on cross-chain development, he contributes
to Cross-Chain Group research and maintains free and open-source Bitcoin libraries for a
number of public chains.

Mable Jiang

Mable is an investor at Multicoin Capital, where she and her colleagues manage a hedge fund
and a venture fund. A big part of her work focuses on helping entrepreneurs identify the best
operational strategy and partnership opportunities, and bridge the East-West knowledge gap.
Prior to crypto investment, Mable had experience in traditional finance at Citi Bank and strategy
at Didi.

Skills
Solana team are equipped with the following skills:

1. Cryptography

Cryptography helps to secure different transactions happening on a network. The primary

applications of cryptography primarily focus on ensuring the security of participants and
transactions, safeguards against double-spending, and lack of influence of central authorities on
operations. If you’re well-versed in this, you can help businesses complete secure monetary
transactions and organisations who prioritise privacy can have their sources submit necessary
information via encryption to ensure that information remains secure. Concepts like
cryptographic hash functions, consensus, and distributed ledger technology are something you
should have hands-on experience with.

2. Data Structures

If you aspire to be a blockchain developer, learning data structures is a must. A block serves as a
data structure. When aligned, it provides the right way to organise ,information in the digital
space. The blockchain network is made up of data structures, so you need to know this to build
networks and implement them. It’s a key component of Computer Science and is widely applied
in areas like AI, operating systems, and more. Having a solid foundation on this will give you a
headstart in understanding advanced concepts.

3. Smart Contract Development

Smart contracts are essentially one of the most useful tools in blockchain. We rely on them to
automate the transfer of everything from bitcoin, fiat money, or receipts around the world. Due
to its transparency, it creates an environment of trust as everything is visible to all participants in
the blockchain network. Smart contracts have the potential to change the way business and trade
works by empowering quick and secure exchanges, reducing paperwork, and driving cost
savings.
4. Web Application Development

A majority of web applications can be written in JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and
HTML5. Thus, prospective web developers should have expertise in the three core programming
components. Web application development tests that you should prepare yourself for can include
a variety of security, performance, load, stress, accessibility, usability, and quality assurance
tests.

Get Started With These Basic Web Development Tools for Blockchain:

 Truffle Framework

 Geth

 Embark

 Remix IDE

 Solium

5. Blockchain Standards and Eco-systems

It’s exciting to think about the future of blockchain with the number of applications emerging.
To build an effective blockchain system, you need to get familiar with blockchain principles and
practices and understand how they can be applied within the business environment. When you
gain this understanding of the current landscape, you can develop strategies to maximise the
benefits of this evolving technology.

Some opportunities include the potential of new forms of business collaboration and
cryptocurrencies, cost-effective management of digital identity through the use of public-key
cryptography, and the adoption of blockchain technologies that could potentially enable new
revenue sources for businesses.

6. Blockchain Programming Languages

The core of every developer is to code. This is not possible without the knowledge and skills of
programming languages. Some of the most popular blockchain programming languages include
C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, SQL, Go, Python, Ruby, Rholang, and Solidity. It’s also advisable to
familiarise yourself with blockchain platforms like R3 Corda, Hyperledger Fabric, DAML
Enterprise Ethereum, Hyperledger Indy/Aries.

Strategy

As of August 2021, there remains only one item to complete on the Solana roadmap-the full
mainnet release.

IFE:

Key Internal Factors Weight Rating Weighted Score

Strengths
- Fast and low cost 0.15 3 0.45
transaction fees ($10
per 1,000,000
transactions)

- Decentralized, 0.05 2 0.10

therefore no need for
intermediaries and no
single point of trust

- Scalability (65,000 0.25 4 1

TPS)

- No minimum staking 0.15 3 0.45

for validators
 - Fraud resistance 0.05 2 0.10
Weaknesses
- Volatility 0.05 2 0.10

- Still in early stage 0.20 4 0.80

(Mainnet is still on
Beta phase)

- Technical 0.05 2 0.10

development is less
priority due to the
growth of Solana’s
ecosystem

Transparency with SOL token 0.05 1 0.05

allocation
3.1 = Solana is above average when it comes to the weighted score and that indicates that the
network has a strong advantage in the Cryptocurrency market among competitors.

Chapter 6

Solana’s Blockchain and Ecosystem Alternative Course of Action

Solana’s Mainnet is on Beta phase

 Advantages: Disadvantages:
Beta testing also concentrates on the Functionality may not be tested as
quality of the product, but gathers users software is still under development stage
input on the product and ensures that the
product is ready for real time users
Useful way to gauge the Mainnet traffic Beta’s performance is based on historical
in relation to the overall cryptocurrency data and may not necessarily be an
market accurate predictor of the Mainnet’s future
performance
Reliability, Security, Robustness are Test Management is an issue. Compared
checked and being examined during Beta to other Mainnet phase types which are
Phase usually executed inside a network is
partially controlled by validator nodes
Reduces Mainnet failure risk via Lack of systematic testing and reporting
customer validation
Cost effective compared to other network Low quality of network’s error reports
infrastructures

Advantages:

“Beta testing also concentrates on the quality of the product, but gathers users input on the
product and ensures that the product is ready for real time users”

- Beta testing provides insights into the functionality of the Mainnet and may help the
improvement not just the performance of the network but also the user experience. Beta
phase reveals whether or not the same level of performance is achievable in the actual
network.
“Useful way to gauge the Mainnet traffic in relation to the overall cryptocurrency market”

- Mainnet (Main network) traffic refers to the amount of data moving across a wallet to a
wallet (peer-to-peer). Network traffic may also refer to data traffic, is also broken down
into data packets and sent over to a wallet before being reassembled by the receiving end
 user. Heavy Mainnet traffic is a nightmare for developers and programmers since it may
lead to network jams and can cause Mainnet shutdowns.
“Reliability, Security, Robustness are checked and being examined during Beta Phase”

- During Beta phase of a Mainnet, the reliability and security (usually layer 1 and layer 2
of a common crypto network) is being put into heavy testing. Since the whole network is
at stake at this two variables. Solana also hosts tons of hackatons to ensure that condition
of their Mainnet.

“Reduces Mainnet failure risk via customer validation”

- During a Beta phase, testing is being performed by real users of the network application
in real environment and it can be considered as a form of external User Acceptance
Testing (UAT). Beta testing reduces product failure risks and provides increased quality
of the product through customer validation.
“Cost effective compared to other network infrastructures”

- Beta testing is a low-cost tactic for squashing hugs and getting early feedback from real
users to help avoid costly errors before releasing the alpha Mainnet.
Disadvantages:

“Functionality may not be tested as software is still under development stage”

- Beta testing is always a black box testing or functional testing, though Alpha testing is
the primary phase where the functionality of a network is being distributed to the
validator nodes as a subject for testing.
“Beta’s performance is based on historical data and may not necessarily be an accurate predictor
of the Mainnet’s future performance”

- Beta testing is useful in determining a network’s short-term risk, and for analyzing
volatility to arrive at equity costs and traffic data. However, since beta is calculated using
historical data points, it becomes less meaningful for investors looking to predict a
network’s future performance.
“Test Management is an issue. Compared to other Mainnet phase types which are usually
executed inside a network is partially controlled by validator nodes”

- Some issues during early testing stage of a network may be due to the testing
management of the Mainnet. Network tens to comply with the quality requirements when
the standards are clearly defined. Unfortunately, perfectly defined quality standards is not
always the case which makes testing a real challenge.
“Lack of systematic testing and reporting”

- Testers and validator nodes often tend to work in complete isolation, and very rarely
indulge in communicating with other team members. Such communication often leads to
testers spending more in back-and-forth emails, meetings, phone calls, and status updates.
“Low quality of network’s error reports”

- Testers often find themselves challenged by user requirements which tend to wreck the
testing process. Inadequate or insufficient report requirements analysis has several
consequences on the quality of the software under development: it can lead to inadequate
functionality or even new requirements being discovered late in the development
lifecycle. Too many missed reports exert immense pressure on the Solana schedule and
compel testers to skip test cases to save time.

The concept and technology of Solana and of the whole blockchain as a whole is difficult to
understand and be mastered by laypersons

Advantages: Disadvantages:
Potential of high returns to those who High volatility and potential for large
will study and learn Cryptocurrency and losses for those who will enter the market
Solana’s blockchain without a solid foundation of
Cryptocurrency literacy
Diversification and greater liquidity for No refund for potential large losses
most educated investors and traders
 Understanding blockchain and the Takes a lot of time to research and study
concept of Solana may lead to active
approach to participating in the market
for new investors and traders. It can be
good for those who have an interest in the
Cryptocurrency market
Staying ahead of inflation for those who Increase potential risk of getting
will adapt the market scammed
Easy to buy and sell Might experience FOMO (Fear Of
Missing Out) for those who can’t
understand the concept and technology

Advantages:

“Potential of high returns to those who will study and learn Cryptocurrency and Solana’s
blockchain”

- Solana and other crypto assets is risky but also potentially extremely profitable.
Cryptocurrency is a good investment if you want to gain direct exposure to the demand
for digital currency.
“Diversification and greater liquidity for most educated investors and traders”

- Technically, cryptocurrencies are a single asset class. But in a cryptocurrency portfolio,

you can diversify across products, coins, and tokens that present different goals and use
cases.
“Understanding blockchain and the concept of Solana may lead to active approach to
participating in the market for new investors and traders. It can be good for those who have an
interest in the Cryptocurrency market”

- Learning about Solana and its ecosystem, and of course the cryptocurrency market as a
whole will change a person’s whole outlook on investments and the investment process.
Once a person get to grips with cryptocurrency, it will lead to having an open minded
about new investment opportunities.
“Staying ahead of inflation for those who will adapt the market”

- Cryptocurrency has positioned itself as a perfect edge against inflation. Unlike fiat
currency, Cryptoccurencies like Solana and Bitcoin is not regulated by the central bank.
Solana is one of the leading cryptocurrency as an inflation-proof “store of value”.
“Easy to buy and sell”

- The concept of cryptocurrency’s liquidty has many facets, and they influence the price of
Bitcoin. Overall, Bitcoin and other crypto’s such as Solana is a liquid asset. Anyone can
liquidate a large sum of Bitcoin at any moment in time with minimal slippage on most
exchanges.
Disadvantages:

“High volatility and potential for large losses for those who will enter the market without a solid
foundation of Cryptocurrency literacy”

- Solana and the whole cryptocurrency market’s one of the most talked disadvantage. It’s
volatility and lack of inherent value. Volatility is a measure of how much the price of an
asset has moved up or down over time. As a newer asset class, crypto is widely
considered to be volatile – with the potential for significant upward and downward
movements over shorter time periods.
“No refund for potential large losses”

- Cryptocurrency are typically non reversible. Once you transact with cryptocurrency, the
transaction is permanent regardless whether the wallet address is right or wrong. This is
due to its decentralization.
“Takes a lot of time to research and study”

- Cryptocurrency and its technology is very new to everyone. Some may find a hard time
studying it. It requires a lot of discipline and consistency when it comes to researching.
“Increase potential risk of getting scammed”

- Thera are number of ways cryptocurrency scammers can steal someones money. People
set up fake cryptocurrency exchanges, and once investors sign up and transfer their
 money, they discover they can’t withdraw it. Similarly, people promote fake coins to
push the price up and then cash out before the value drops to nothing.
“Might experience FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) for those who can’t understand the concept and
technology”

- In the context of financial markets and trading, FOMO refers to the fear that a trader or
investor feel by missing out on a potentially lucrative investment or trading opportunity.
The FOMO feeling is particularly prevalent when an asset rises in value significantly
over a relatively short time.
Solana’s very active community

Advantages: Disadvantages:
Community offers inside knowledge and Mainnet may experience some crashes
creativity towards the Solana ecosystem due to the heavy traffic in the network
Increase brand awareness Can be a nightmare for programmers
because of the network traffic
Building trust within the community Balancing different interests can lead to
slow-decision making within the
ecosystem.
Leverage local ties Increase of spamming and spread of
FUD’s (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubts)
Fostering a culture of collaboration Can cause conflict between different
community members and validator nodes.

Advantages:

“Community offers inside knowledge and creativity towards the Solana ecosystem”

- Increased community engagement and sense of belonging at a company has shown to

benefit the organization for the better. Since the Solana’s community are real users and at
the same time active investors and traders, they play a big role on the ecosystem of the
network.
“Increase brand awareness”

- Increase in brand awareness leads to keeping the Solana company a competitive

blockchain network, builds brand equity, customer loyalty, and increase in investors and
traders.
“Building trust within the community”

- Solana’s active community leads to trust within the community. Trust means that the
investors, traders, and validator nodes rely on someone else to do the right thing. They
believe in the Solana’s philosophy, to the extent that they’re willing to put their money on
the line, at some high risk.
“Leverage local ties”

- With leveraging ties, it means that Solana may take full use of all their resources to tie
with local markets and cultivate relationship instead of forcing them. It’s about respect
and collaboration, not manipulation.

“Fostering a culture of collaboration”

- A collaboration culture is one where collaboration is regular and deliberate. Collaboration

doesn’t just occur if a network happens to initiate it. Instead, it’s baked into processes of
how people do their work every day and into the attitudes they take about that work.

Disadvantages:

“Mainnet may experience some crashes due to the heavy traffic in the network”

- System crash occurs when a network stops functioning properly and exits. In the Solana
Mainnet, this usually happens due to the heavy traffic in the network. Huge amounts of
transaction are being put into hold, some SOL token holder decided to sell their holdings
when the system crash just few months ago.
“Can be a nightmare for programmers because of the network traffic”
 - For the programmers, active community means a lot of work for them. Since they
understand that heavy traffic in the Mainnet can cause system crashes, they need to put in
the extra work.
“Balancing different interests can lead to slow-decision making within the ecosystem.”

- Not everyone in the community agree with each other. This means that balancing
different suggestion and interest may lead to slow-decision making since the BOD has to
weigh everything out.
“Increase of spamming and spread of FUD’s (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubts)”

- Spamming and the spread of FUD is a strategy of some investors who want to lower the
price of crypto of price coins so they can buy them cheaply. Investors can spread FUD to
the general public so that investors can deposit coins at low prices.
“Can cause conflict between community members and validator nodes”

- In particular, conflict in organizations can be caused by task interdependencies, status

inconsistencies, jurisdictional ambiguities, communication problems, dependence on
common resource pools, lack of common performance standards, and individual
differences.

Alternative Course of Action for Solana’s Mainnet Beta phase

- The very obvious action that Solana has to take is to upgrade their Mainnet into at least
Gamma phase. In this stage, Solana can improve their systematic reports and testing, and
the quality of reports.
- Graduating from Beta phase of Solana’s Mainnet may lead to cost-efficiency. When the
token situation of Solana is in dire state, reducing the Mainnet complexity, staking
processes, validating nodes, and reducing gas fee may achieve a significant decrease in
the costs and increase the financial capacity of the organization faster.
- Upgrading the Mainnet Beta phase can give Solana a chance to focus on core operations.
By investing solely in the network’s core operations whilst at the same time divesting the
non-core operations that distract the community and its management, the network can
 exclusively focus on improving and strengthening these operations, thus increase its
capacity to serve investors well.
Alternative Course of Action for Solana and Cryptocurrency poor literacy among laypersons

- Strengthening the marketing strategy. Improving the quality of Blockchain education that
is being held across the globe, improving the primary and supporting processes, and
devoting more attention to spreading Blockchain literacy among laypersons may lead to
more people adapting the cryptocurrency.
- Conducting institutional Blockchain education may lead to organizational Bitcoin and
Solana adoption not just within the companies but also countries, just like what happened
to El Salvador, the first country to declare Bitcoin as a legal tender.
- Exploit teaching opportunities. The period in which many competitors are occupied with
defensive measures offers an ideal opportunity to undertake activities that will enhance
the organization’s position in the market, such as launching free/paid cryptocurrency and
blockchain academy, launching podcast, tie-ing with Universities, etc.

Alternative Course of Action for Solana’s active community

- As the organization grows, the management and community in charge of it often find that
a simple organizational structure is no longer adequate to meet the organization’s needs.
This means that the management needs to reform the organizational structure. Networks
become more complex as they grow, and this can require more formal division of labour
and a strong emphasis on hierarchy and vertical links.
- Vertical linkages between management and community are central for decision making,
communications, and accountability. This offers several benefits: maximizing the
organization’s flexibility, enhancing communication by emphasizing both vertical (top-
down) and horizontal communications across functional lines, and supporting a stronger
spirit of collaboration.
Reforming the organizational structure can help develop new managers and leaders within the
validator nodes. In particular, a person with limited managerial experience can become a team
leader for a relatively small project in developing their network.
 Solana Mainnet Gamma Phase Proposed Strategy
Key Areas Objectives Strategies Program/Activities Performance Person in Time Source of
Indicator Charge Frame Fund

To expand Expansion Ensuring the Mainnet Marketing First Unrealized

Solana's of the quality of work awareness Department quarter token gains
market by Technical force in the 2022 from
Solana their Department organization. private
Mainnet inflationary mining and
Beta Phase style and Provide a consistent validators
to Gamma going connection with the
Phase global. employees and it's
workplace.

More employees on
the technical
department

To enlarge Efficiency Improve the Mainnet I.T Sales and

Solana's of technology more reliability Department Last Revenues
production distributing for better and easy Quarter from
and SOL access of of current
operation Tokens cryptocurrencies to 2022 circulating
team to their proof-of- supply of
concentrate history. SOL
tracking the Tokens
order Provide an accurate
transactions. proof-of-history or Sales and Finance Staking
computation that Revenue Department Last deposits,
enables Growth Quarter Transaction
automatically of fees, and
ordered 2023. Gas fees
transactions.

Strategic Planning
 Solana's beta testing provides insights into the function of the mainnet and may the
improvement of performance of the matrix and the user's experience. The game plan will
be focus more on the technical development to upgrade it sooner. It will be needed to add
more people under the development department.
Solana and other crypto assets are risky and it is important for the users to be
knowledgeable when it comes to the process or on how it will work. Improving Solana's
 marketing department could help them by having clear and accurate instructions and
description.

 Solana's inflationary plan and going global in the next 5 years would be a crucial step
into becoming a mainstream decentralized system, the distribution of SOL Tokens to the
different departments are proportionate to the current supply of SOL tokens of Solana, by
also focusing on the development of Mainnet, Solana's clusters and system will run
smoothly with precise efficiency. Having said that, the inflationary style of crypto is not
common today, by having perks and incentives to users will highly encourage them to
use SOL tokens. With having no minimum staking holdings, all of the people who are
willing to use Solana could purchase their own stake holdings. Establishing this strategy
will help the Mainnet to reduce failure risk because of customer’s validation, having to
prioritize the safety and convenience of the users is a crucial part of Solana's agenda.

The proposed strategy above was examined by a few Cryptocurrency experts, the survey results
are below:
 References:

- Solana’s White Paper

- https://research.binance.com/en/projects/solana
- https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/what-is-solana-sol
- https://research.binance.com/en/projects
- https://messari.io/asset/solana
- https://messari.io/screener/solana-ecosystem-42CD47DA
- https://messari.io/article/layer-1-of-the-rising-sun-solana-nfts
- https://www.bsp.gov.ph/Media_and_Research/Primers%20Faqs/VC.pdf
- https://www.bworldonline.com/bsp-moves-to-tighten-cryptocurrency-regulations-to-
boost-industry-market/
- https://cnnphilippines.com/business/2021/5/21/BSP-cryptocurrency-vulnerability-
dirty-money-value-fluctuation.html
- https://www.bsp.com.pg/about-us/bsp-publications/cryptocurrencies/
- https://www.philstar.com/business/2021/03/01/2080977/bsp-sees-further-rise-
cryptocurrency-transactions
- https://ph.news.yahoo.com/is-philippines-losing-cryptocurrency-race-
075051856.html
- https://anycoindirect.eu/en/blog/what-is-proof-of-
history#:~:text=power%20is%20needed.-
,Solana's%20Proof%2Dof%2DHistory,with%20the%20SHA256%20hash%20funct
ion.
- https://medium.com/solana-labs/how-solanas-proof-of-history-is-a-huge-
advancement-for-block-time-178899c89723
- https://www.leewayhertz.com/solana-blockchain-using-poh/
- https://solana.com/
- https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/solana-foundation
- https://iohk.io/
PAUL HARLEY R. DAGUNAN
Kensington Phase 6 B4L31 LNC General Trias, Cavite
+63 917 730 2508
dagunanp@gmail.com

I. OBJECTIVE
Seeking a position that can provide a steady growth and learning
opportunity to practice my profession and practical experience
extensively.

II. PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: May 20, 1997

Age: 24
Place of Birth: Puerto Princesa City, Palawan
Status: Single
Height: 5’10
Weight: 84kg
Religion: Roman Catholic
Nationality: Filipino
III. EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Tertiary: Jose Rizal University

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
Major in Management
80 Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong, 1552 Metro Manila
June 2019 - Present

La Consolacion College Manila

8 Mendiola Ext, San Miguel, Manila, 1005 Metro Manila
June 2018 - March 2019

STI Paranaque
Gatchalian Ave, Parañaque Manila
June 2017 – October 2017

University Of The East

2219 Recto Ave, Sampaloc, Manila, 1008 Metro Manila
June 2015 - March 2017

Secondary: University of the East

2219 Recto Ave, Sampaloc, Manila, 1008 Metro Manila
Batch 2010-2015

Primary: Puerto Princesa Pilot Elementary School

Rizal Ave. Puerto Princesa, Palawan
Batch 2004-2010

IV. SEMINAR
Entitled “BAA: Effective Communation: Powerful Tool for
Business and Legal Management
September 1, 2020
V. WORK EXPERIENCE
Mr. Speedy PH
Feb. 2020 - 2021

VI. SKILLS & ABILITIES

 Good knowledge of computer skills such as MS PowerPoint, Word,

and online survey tools.
 Motivated and always willing to learn new things
 Ability to work independently or as part of a team
 Adequate in oral and written communication
 Hardworking and Responsible

VII. REFERENCES
Luis Jose Gonzalez
BCAP President/ JRU Basketball Headcoach
luisjose.gonzaleziii@jru.edu

Roger Agias
Examiner
Bureau of Customs
5463516
Ismael S. Jugo
Mandaluyong city, Philippines

09999636323

ismaeljugo@gmail.com

www.linkedin.com/in/ismael-jugo

Profile:

I am an enthusiastic and driven BSBA Major in Banking and Finance Senior from Jose Rizal University. I am
currently looking to secure a position to utilize my analytical skills, financial intelligence, and business knowledge.

Education:

College: BSBA Major in Banking and Finance - Jose Rizal University, Mandaluyong City, Philippines

Senior Highschool: Tech-Voc Program Major in Tour Guiding - Jose Rizal University, Mandaluyong City, Philippines

Junior Highschool: Second Philippine International School in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Certificates:
 Microsoft Office Specialist
 Google Digital Marketing
 International Fitness Professionals Association CPFT

Seminars:

 Achieve Centre for Leadership: Leading Teams Remotely - Webinar

 Financial Literacy with Stock Market & Mutual Funds, IMG Financial Center, Makati City

Proficiency:

 Fin-Tech
 Cryptocurrency and Philippine Stock Market Investing
 Macro, Fundamental, and Technical Analysis
 Blockchain Technology, Smart Contracts, NFT’s, De-Fi, and POW/POS
  REITs
 Microsoft Office – Excel, Word, PowerPoint
 Digital Marketing

Affiliations:
 JRU Junior Financial Executives

Languages:

English – Fluent

Filipino – Native

Arabic - Conversational

References:
Antonio Andrew M. Zalamea

CEO & Founder, Z Global Distribution

09178539995
ALAYSSA R. MACAPAGAL
213 Robles St. Manggahan, Pasig City
0926-391-6883
layssamacapagal@gmail.com

CAREER OBJECTIVE
To be part of a stable and ever-growing company with limitless opportunities and professionals driven towards
commitment to quality, excellence and customer satisfaction

OTHER INFORMATION
HEIGHT: 5’3
WEIGHT: 57KG
BIRTHDAY: JULY 2O, 2000
NATIONALITY: FILIPINO
STATUS: SINGLE
RELIGION: BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
COLLEGE
Jose Rizal University
2018-2022
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
RIZAL HIGH SCHOOL
Accountancy Business and Management (ABM)
SY 2017-18
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
RIZAL HIGH SCHOOL
SY 2012-16
PRIMARY
La Immaculada Concepcion School
SY.2006-12
SOFT SKILLS
 Communication
 Ability to Work under Pressure
 Decision Making
 Time Management
 Self-motivation
CHARACTER REFERENCE
Silver Morabe 09662272285
Mikaela Ugalino 09156239351
Stephanie Sanchez 09369309396