Solana vs Ethereum, Chapter 2: An In-Depth Blockchain Comparison

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19 Jan 2024

Blockchains' infrastructure:

From an end-user perspective, Solana and Ethereum are similar as open-source public blockchains compatible with smart contracts. However, the Solana and Ethereum blockchain infrastructure offers a wide range of technological advances and developments. Although both projects generally aim for the same result, each does it differently. This includes the use of programming languages, consensus models, and development tools.

Solana:

The Solana blockchain uses new infrastructure components that include eight main characteristics. These include the world's first parallel smart contract execution environment, "Sealevel". Unlike Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) or WebAssembly (WASM) virtual machines, which are single-threaded (working on one contract at a time), Sealevel can process tens of thousands of contracts simultaneously.

Additionally, Solana has a built-in “Pipeline,” a transaction processing engine that optimizes all the hardware on the network for verification. In addition, the project implements "Gulfstream", an alternative transaction forwarding protocol that eliminates the use of mempools. The project uses a unique solution for scaling the horizontal account database called "Cloudbreak".

Another innovative aspect of Solana is “Turbine,” a block distribution protocol that helps solve the scalability problem of the blockchain trilemma. In addition, Solana uses "Archivers" to distribute ledger storage on lightweight clients (without downloading all ledger data) as part of a validation and replication protocol. Finally, as the main inspiration for the project, advanced "Proof-of-History (PoH) and Tower BFT" protocols facilitate consensus mechanisms for the Solana network. We'll look at them in detail in the next section.

Solana operates a network of validators that validate, manage, and store transactional activity on the chain, and uses “Clusters” of validators that work for specific purposes. Anyone can support the decentralization and censorship resistance of the network using their own SOL asset. Moreover, there are no minimum requirements to place a stake or become a validator. However, there are some technical requirements for running a blockchain, as well as costs for participating in consensus. At the same time, the network design will incentivize validators by offering the opportunity to earn passive income.

Ethereum:

The launch of the Ethereum network in 2015 used a blockchain infrastructure similar to the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Using a proof-of-work consensus algorithm, the number one smart contract chain operates on a globally distributed network of nodes that confirm transactions. However, since Ethereum's main purpose is to promote decentralized development rather than create a peer-to-peer payment network, the transaction infrastructure is different from Bitcoin. For example, Bitcoin uses a UTXO (unspent transaction output) model, while Ethereum uses an accounting model. As a result, this allowed Ethereum to operate at an average transaction speed twice that of Bitcoin - about 15 transactions per second (TPS).

As enthusiasm, adoption, and development of Ethereum grew, so did network congestion, as well as expensive gas fees. However, co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been working on scaling solutions since the initial launch in 2015, and Ethereum 2.0 promised to solve these problems. Originally planned for 2019, the first phase of Ethereum 2.0 launched in December 2021. At this point, the Beacon Chain was introduced, marking the beginning of the transition from proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Another element of Ethereum 2.0 is the different approaches to scaling solutions. A popular solution for scaling Ethereum is Layer 2 (L2) protocols. These include the use of sidechains, off-chain and zero-knowledge technologies running on top of the Ethereum main chain.

By the way, most Layer 2 protocols are external enhancements to Ethereum by third party projects and developers. Ethereum 2.0 updates include sharding and zero-knowledge technologies (e.g. zk-rollups, zk-SNARKs) on the Ethereum mainchain. In turn, this will dramatically increase the chain's throughput to approximately 100,000 transactions per second (TPS).