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Solana’s Evolution: Has It Become the Ultimate “Ethereum-Killer”?

Solana

The 2021 bull market allowed Solana to shine as one of the top-performing layer-1 tokens in the industry. It managed to outperform rivals like Avalanche, Algorand, and Polkadot by a large margin and reached an eye-watering all-time high of $260 per SOL token.

Moreover, due to its sudden success, Solana managed to onboard very strong developer teams that deployed industry-leading applications. The blockchain thrived with DeFi, NFTs, and games. However, the success dwindled as network outages became more frequent. In addition, following the collapse of the ill-fated FTX exchange, the SOL token plummeted in value.

Despite all of this, Solana is once again picking up the pace as a new bullish cycle seems to be lurking around the corner. Since October 2023, the token’s value increased 5x and seems to have some rocket fuel left in the tank. In this article, we analyze whether Solana can surpass Ethereum’s traction or if you should just buy ETH instead.

Solana: A Detailed Analysis of Its Blockchain Technology

Solana’s creators Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal launched the project with a simple premise — providing unparalleled scalability to blockchain technology. At a time when Ethereum was struggling with network congestion and network fees, Solana came as the savior of DeFi.

To achieve this, Solana became a smart contract-capable network that uses the novel Proof of History consensus mechanism. This allows it to reach incredibly fast transaction speeds and block finality, with a theoretical throughput of 710,000 tps. At the same time, transaction costs remain negligible, which makes it a perfect platform for deploying DeFi applications.

Proof of History bases itself on the assumption that the order of the events on a blockchain is as important as the blocks. As such, the protocol generates time markers for every block, which validators can use to verify the veracity of the data on the network.

Since validators need just a small amount of data, the validation process is significantly more cost-effective than on other chains. This narrative allowed Solana to become a major competitor to Ethereum. It also primed it as one of the best cryptocurrencies to invest in during the Layer-1 boom of 2021.

With that in mind, we should note that this high scalability comes at a certain cost. It requires a certain degree of centralization regarding validator consensus.

Solana’s Unique Features

Solana has managed to place itself as a premium blockchain, with strong developer teams and industry-leading applications in DeFi. Below, we analyze some major features that allowed the project to succeed and reach the top 5 by market cap.

Innovative Consensus Mechanism and Scalability

Many blockchain enthusiasts consider the PoH consensus to be the most groundbreaking technology in cryptography in the last decade. This scalability feature retains the blockchain architecture of cryptographically chained blocks in a decentralized ledger.

This is in contrast to networks like Avalanche, which uses a triumvirate of chains for scalability. Or to Algorand and similar networks that prefer to rely on directed acyclic graph technology instead of a blockchain.

Many investors and developers are ready to sacrifice some of their decentralization to benefit from the superior scalability Solana proposes.

Cross-Chain Interoperability and Fast Confirmation Times

Thanks to the Wormhole technology, Solana benefits from asset composability across different chains. Users can easily wrap and send tokens on Solana to and from other blockchains within minutes, at very low costs.

This improves the interoperability of the Solana network but doesn’t propose EVM compatibility like the majority of other blockchains. However, many developers have expressed their preference for the Rust programming language on Solana over Solidity on Ethereum.

Comparing SOL vs. ETH: Project Stats and Market Performance Insights (2024)

To continue our analysis, let’s have a closer look at both Solana’s and Ethereum’s project statistics and market performance.

Market Capitalization, Dominance, and Trading Volume

Solana’s market cap has recently increased by 5x, following the general bullish wave in the cryptocurrency market. At its current valuation of $94 per SOL, the project records a market cap of $40 billion.

Trading volume has equally skyrocketed, coming from $150 million daily volume in September 2023 to $2.5 billion in January 2024.

Ethereum doubled its market cap in 2023, currently reaching $296 billion and a price of $2,240 per ETH. The trading volume is much steadier, with an average of $10 billion per day over the last six months.

Price Trends and Historical Performance

As we mentioned in the introduction, the bear market was quite harsh to the SOL price action. Coming from an all-time high of $260, the token fell as low as $11 in December 2022. For many, this was the end of the Solana blockchain. The majority of the crypto community didn’t expect SOL to recover from such a drastic fall.

However, since October 2023, Solana has surpassed all expectations. It has become the best-performing top 50 cryptocurrency, increasing 500% in price in just over two months. This sudden surge came after the success of Solana-native memecoin BONK and the success of similar projects on the network.

Ethereum, on the other hand, has enjoyed much more conservative price action in the past year. Although the price action remains very bullish, the growth hasn’t been as critical as on Solana. Since Jan 2023, the ETH cryptocurrency has increased 200% in value, firmly holding the #2 spot in crypto.

Conclusion on

In the last quarter of 2023, Solana surprised everyone but the most firm believers in that project. With its staggering growth, it brought a glimmer of hope in crypto, improving the general sentiment in the market. Although some naysayers believe that it might have reached most of its potential, trading volumes tell a different story.

Conversely, Ethereum is still waiting on a genuine market rally. This might come from the emergence and popularity of Layer 2 solutions such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Note that Ethereum also remains on top of the DeFi industry, with the most active developers on payroll. Solana still has a ways to go before reaching the widespread adoption of EVM networks.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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