Can We Improve Solana Network and Help Ecosystem Grow? And How?

The core and Unique Technological Innovations of Solana

Solana is a high-performance blockchain network that has introduced several unique technological innovations to address the scalability and throughput challenges faced by many other blockchain platforms. Here are some of the core and unique technological innovations in the Solana blockchain:

1. Proof-of-History (PoH):

Solana pioneered a new consensus Algorithm called Proof-of-History, which is a cryptographic clock that helps order transactions and achieve consensus without relying on traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) or Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanisms. PoH allows Solana to process transactions more efficiently and at a higher throughput than many other blockchains.

2. Tower BFT:

Solana uses a novel variant of the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus algorithm called Tower BFT. This algorithm allows Solana to achieve consensus more efficiently by leveraging the PoH mechanism and optimizing the way nodes communicate and reach agreement.

3. Cloudbreak Network Architecture:

Solana’s network architecture, called Cloudbreak, is designed to maximize horizontal scaling by separating the validation of transactions from their execution. This architecture allows Solana to leverage high-performance GPUs or CPUs for transaction execution while using lower-performance hardware for validation, optimizing resource utilization and cost-effectiveness.

4. Archivers and Turbine Block Propagation:

Solana uses a unique approach to data storage and distribution called Archivers. Archivers are dedicated nodes responsible for storing and serving historical data to other nodes in the network. This approach, combined with the Turbine Block Propagation Protocol, enables efficient data distribution and reduces the storage requirements for individual nodes, improving scalability.

5. Rust-based Programming Language:

Solana is built using the Rust programming language, which is designed for performance, safety, and concurrency. Rust’s low-level control and memory safety features enable Solana to achieve high performance while maintaining security and reliability.

6. Pipelining:

Think of it as an assembly line for transaction validation. It breaks down the process into specialized units for input fetching, signature verification, etc. This allows different aspects of validation to occur simultaneously on the hardware level.

The key characteristics of a pipelined architecture illustrated in this diagram are: 1. The instruction execution process is divided into multiple stages or segments — 2.Each stage handles a specific subtask of the overall execution process — 3.Different instructions can be in different stages of the pipeline simultaneously, allowing for concurrent execution of instructions— 4. There are decision points (e.g., “Branch?”, “Interrupt?”) that control the flow of instructions through the pipeline stages.Source

7. Gulf Stream:

This protocol is crucial in achieving Solana’s sub-second transaction speeds. It allows validators to start processing transactions ahead of time by forwarding them even before the current block is finalized. This means fewer delays due to mempool (pending transaction) congestion.

8. Solana Virtual Machine:

This is the execution environment that processes transactions and smart contracts/programs on the Solana network.

SVM affect:

Fees

• Efficiency: The SVM’s design and Sealevel’s parallelization are vital for keeping transaction processing costs low.
• No Gas Wars: Unlike Ethereum where users bid against each other for transaction priority, Solana uses a predictable fee model, mitigating sudden spikes.

The EVM processes transactions/smart contracts in a single-threaded manner, meaning that transactions are executed one by one in a sequential order. The SVM processes transactions/smart contracts in a multi-threaded (parallel) fashion, allowing multiple transactions to be executed simultaneously. source

Scheduling

• Optimized Resource Allocation: The SVM, working closely with the leader (validator) scheduling process in Solana, helps ensure smart contracts are executed in an optimal order to maximize resource usage and maintain network speed.
• Fairness: Solana prioritizes efficient use of resources over allowing any single transaction to hog the entire network, making the experience fairer for all users.

Other Key Roles of the SVM:

• Security: The SVM isolates smart contracts, minimizing potential vulnerabilities and their impact on the network.
• Developer Experience: The SVM provides a familiar environment for developers, supporting languages like Rust, C, and C++, which compile into Solana’s bytecode format.

These innovative technologies work together to enable Solana to achieve high throughput, low latency, and scalability, making it suitable for applications that require high transaction volumes and fast processing times, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and gaming applications.

Validator’s Optimization Approaches on Solana

To understand optimization, let’s quickly cover the basics of transaction scheduling on Solana:

• Leaders: Solana validators take turns being “leaders.” A leader’s role is to collect transactions, order them into blocks, and propose these blocks to the rest of the network.

The diagram provides a simplified overview of the Solana network architecture. It shows how nodes(i.e. computers) communicate with each other, how transactions(Tx) are processed, and how the state of the blockchain is maintained. The key role of the slot leader nodes in proposing new blocks with PoH timestamps, the voting process by validators to confirm the blocks, and the peer-to-peer communication involved in the PoH consensus Algorithm.Source:

The scheduler:

Encompasses the decision-making processes and design choices validator clients employ when determining how to order and execute transactions within a block.

Diagram Represents a scheduler process. It consists of several stages or components connected by arrows, indicating the flow of data or tasks, and illustrates a multi-stage process for ingesting, verifying, recording, broadcasting, and potentially further processing data in a distributed or parallel computing environment. Source

Transaction Processing:

The process of receiving transactions, verifying their signatures, and executing them within the Solana virtual machine is where optimization plays a crucial role.

Client-Specific Optimization Techniques

Jito Labs Client

• Parallel Processing: Heavy focus on parallelizing transaction validation and execution across multiple CPU cores for increased throughput.
• Optimized Data Structures: Utilizing data structures tailored to the Solana virtual machine’s requirements for improved efficiency.

The Jito Labs client on Solana and Flashbots on Ethereum share several similarities and connections in their roles within their respective blockchain ecosystems:

Common Focus: MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)

• Central Theme: Both Jito and Flashbots are heavily focused on the concept of MEV. As searchers and builders look to generate profit from the reordering, inclusion, or exclusion of transactions on-chain, these services become important.
• Auction Mechanisms: Both implement auction-like systems where searchers or bots submit “bundles” of transactions they believe will be profitable if included in a specific order. Validators then select the most profitable bundle.

Sent to Bundle Auction: This is the initial stage where 17,057,916 bundles have been forwarded for auction. Forwarded to Validator: This is the next stage where 3.24% of the initial bundles, which is approximately 552,266 bundles, have been forwarded to the validator. Landed On-chain: This is the final stage where 2.84% of the initial bundles, approximately 484,727 bundles, have successfully landed on-chain. Credits to source

The funnel shows a high initial filter rate (over 96% of bundles are eliminated between “Sent to Bundle Auction” and “Forwarded to Validator”). This demonstrates the auction and bundle system’s success in deterring spam.

How Jito Relates to Flashbots

• Inspiration: Jito Labs took inspiration from Flashbots’ success in handling MEV on the Ethereum network.
• Shared Goal: Their goals align in providing a more transparent and fair way to handle and distribute the value of MEV within their respective blockchains.
• Collaboration: There is active collaboration between Flashbots and Jito Labs to bring more of Flashbots’ solutions and expertise to Solana.

Users submit transactions to the network. These transactions could involve sending or receiving cryptocurrency, interacting with smart contracts, or other operations on the blockchain — >Transactions go into the mempool: The mempool is a temporary storage space where submitted transactions wait to be included in a block —>MEV search bots pick up tansactions: MEV stands for Maximal Extractable Value. In the context of blockchains, it refers to the additional profit that can be generated by strategically including or excluding certain transactions from a block. MEV search bots are programs that scan the mempool for transactions that could potentially yield MEV—>Including transactions in blocks: Miners or validators select transactions from the mempool and include them in blocks. They may prioritize transactions that include higher fees or that they believe will yield them more MEV.Source

How to utilize AI(Artificial Intelligence)?

• Optimized Resource Allocation: AI algorithms could analyze network usage patterns to predict congestion hotspots and suggest dynamic adjustments to resource allocation. This could smooth traffic flow and potentially lower fees during periods of high demand.
• Intelligent Validator Selection: AI models could evaluate validator performance metrics, geographic distribution, and other factors to help users select the most efficient and reliable validators, promoting better decentralization and network health.
• Fraud and Anomaly Detection: AI could be used to identify potential fraudulent activity or network anomalies, leading to a more secure environment and potentially preventing exploits that disrupt the network.

How to Further Optimize Solana’s Scheduling?

1. Sharding-inspired techniques could assign separate shards of the total chain state to different validators, parallelizing some transaction verification work. This is complex, but offers massive scalability potential.
2. Fee-Based Ordering — Allow users to offer higher fees to have their transactions prioritized. This creates a market-driven mechanism to incentivize faster inclusion. (please note that Fee-based prioritization needs careful design to avoid centralizing power with the wealthiest participants.)
3. Tie economic incentives to validator performance in terms of transaction throughput and avoiding stalls. This would motivate better hardware, and network optimization, and potentially even influence validator software choices like Firedancer.
4. Separate pools for different transaction categories (DeFi swaps, NFT interactions, etc.) to ensure critical operations aren’t completely blocked. Firedancer’s scheduling optimizations could complement this strategy, ensuring efficient processing within each category.
5. Transaction Prefiltering — Validators discard obviously invalid transactions (non-matching signatures, insufficient funds) before they clog the mempool.
6. Efficient mempool implementations would potentially use priority queues or other data structures optimized for fast removal and reordering.

The x-axis shows the breakdown of time in milliseconds, and the y-axis lists the different tasks involved.

What are important Upgrades and potential implements?

Important upgrades in the Solana blockchain’s cross-chain bridge allowing validators from other blockchains to participate in Solana consensus could enhance decentralization and potentially boost performance.

Key Areas of Upgrade

Security — Given the history of exploits targeting cross-chain bridges, security is the primary focus. Upgrades involve:

• Rigorous Audits and Testing: Thorough testing and smart code contract audits seek to pinpoint vulnerabilities before launch or rollout of updates.
• Bug Bounties: Enticing ethical hackers to identify issues and earn rewards.
• Decentralization: Minimizing the impact of a single point of failure by using systems like multi-signature authority structures or distributed consensus Algorithms.

Efficiency — Improvements are geared towards faster transactions and lower fees.

• Enhanced Liquidity: Larger liquidity across chains in bridge protocols can lead to better rates and less slippage.
• Optimized Routing: Algorithms that find the most efficient paths for swaps through multiple chains.

Interoperability — Expanding the reach of Solana’s bridges to connect with more blockchains. Integration with IBC could significantly increase Solana’s interoperability. This would allow for seamless interaction with the Cosmos ecosystem and other IBC-enabled blockchains, opening up opportunities for cross-chain DeFi and asset transfers.

• Support for Emerging Chains: Keeping up with major developments in the blockchain space allows integration with new chains.
• Protocol Adaptability: The ability to support the unique consensus mechanisms and transaction structures of different blockchains for seamless asset transfers.

Examples of Projects

• Wormhole: A popular bridge that has undergone multiple security audits and introduced enhancements to reduce exploit risks. It supports a wide range of blockchains.
• Allbridge: A bridge offering multiple products, including those targeted at cross-chain stablecoin swaps, aiming for efficiency. It actively expands its supported blockchain list.
• Neon Labs: Responsible for the development of Solana’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), this compatibility layer opens the door for more seamless bridging between Ethereum and Solana assets.

Potential Implementations

1. ZK-Rollups for Transaction Bundling — Implement a zk-rollup solution on Solana to bundle transactions off-chain. This reduces the main chain’s load and leads to more efficient scheduling.

simplified overview of a zk-rollup, which is a type of layer-2 scaling solution for blockchains that bundle transactions into batches that are executed off-chain and verified on-chain using a validity proof.Source

“Simpe analogy for Zero-knowledge solutions Imagine congested highway (blockchain) faces traffic issues due to individual cars (transactions). Introducing an express bus (ZK-Rollup) that consolidates multiple transactions, processes them off the highway, and leaves a compact proof (ZK proof) on the highway, reducing congestion and fees.”

2. More streamlined educational content to welcome newcomers, understanding blockchain fundamentals, Solana-specific concepts, and best security practices.

3. Careful testing, code auditing, and optimizing critical network code to reduce bottlenecks and software vulnerabilities.

4. Better documentation, onboarding guides, and enhanced debugging tools would make it easier for developers to work efficiently.

5. Next-gen RPC tools could provide better insights and control over the network for developers building on Solana. Things like improved analytics, debugging capabilities and fine-grained control over transactions and accounts.

6. Improved User Experience(UX/UI): Wallets, block explorers, and other user-facing tools need to keep evolving to be more intuitive for the average user.

7. AI-Informed Voting: AI models could provide validators with analysis and recommendations about network upgrades or hard forks, potentially including changes that optimize transaction throughput and impact the fee structure.

Supplementals

1. Support light clients on mobile/IoT devices to increase accessibility.
2. Picasso, a parachain on Kusama (Polkadot’s sister network), focuses on interoperability. They are leading the charge on creating the first Solana-IBC connection. This would bring trustless IBC compatibility to connect Solana with the broader Cosmos ecosystem.
3. Attracting top-tier DeFi, NFT, and gaming projects is crucial for driving adoption. Continued hackathons, grants, and incubator programs are vital.
4. Modular design and abstraction layers in core network software can make upgrades easier. This enables individual components to be improved without affecting others.
5. Cross-Chain Interoperability — Enhanced bridges to Ethereum and other major chains facilitate asset movement and broaden Solana’s reach.
6. Light Clients: Enabling trustless operation of light clients on resource-constrained devices (like smartphones) could significantly expand Solana’s accessibility for everyday users.
7. Improve redundancy and resilience by having multiple PoH generators with built- in leader election.

Caveats — Blockchain design is intricate; every improvement brings potential trade-offs in other areas.

• Complexity: Each of these concepts requires significant development effort and integration with Solana’s core systems.
• Tradeoffs: Some improvements might introduce tradeoffs — e.g., cross-chain integrations can have security risks.

We Should Maximize Layer 1 for Decentralization and Security and explore or Optimize Layer 2 for Scalability.!

References:

1. https://forum.solana.com/ -
2. https://solana.com/solana-whitepaper.pdf
3. Google.com
4. https://solana.com/docs
5. Other sources consulted are duly hyperlinked.

If you have any suggestions Contact me on Twitter @Oxmarkdams or @realmarkdamasco Thank you.