After having read so many assertions about Solana (SOL) on the social networks, I did my own research to respond factually to each of these assertions:
1) First assertion: "Solana is centralized"
As usual, there are two sides to the coin:
- There are currently 1849 validators (i.e., more than most of the other blockchains), which can easily be checked on: https://solanabeach.io/.
- Solana outages show that the network is still centralized because it had to be restarted by the developers, acting like a central authority.
2) Second assertion: "Solana is always down"
Although we can understand this kind of exageration (since it is human), some other well-known blockchains also suffer from outages or other issues:
- Arbitrum went down in January, citing "sequencer problem".
- Polygon (MATIC) went down in March for over 11 hours due to a bug with the consensus mechanism and block production.
- Optimism also experienced difficulties with their network at the launch of their OP token on June 1...
- Cardano (ADA) would not have had any real outage, but was congested in February with users of decentralized exchanges like SundaeSwap and MinSwap reporing wait times up to eight hours...
Furthermore, according to Nansen research:
there are often 10-times more transactions on Solana than Ethereum. This means Solana is dealing with demands not faced by other blockchains and this is new territory.
3) Third assertion: "SOL is a shitcoin"
Before debating about this assertion, it is required to define a shitcoin. For instance, for a Bitcoin maximalist, even Ethereum (ETH) would be a shitcoin... Having said that, SOL is usually referred as a shitcoin due to the VC holdings. While it is indeed a potential issue, SOL is not the only crypto in that case:
We can see on this graph that Binance Coin (BNB) has 50% insiders - i.e., "all team, company and VC purchased tokens", whereas insiders represent 42% of Avalanche (AVAX) initial token allocation, which is almost as much as Solana (SOL). However, these coins do not seem to be as much criticized as SOL.
In summary
Due to the young age of the crypto industry, there can be a strong subjectivity leading to false assertions about some coins like Solana (SOL). Although a crypto like Solana (SOL) is far from being perfect, it needs to be assessed with the same criteria as the other coins in order to make the right investment.
Disclaimer: this article does not contain any financial advice. The information is provided for general informational and educational purposes only.
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