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- Although Solana is still early in its development, it already has a lot to offer the users.
- Wallets like Phantom and Solflare make it easy to interact with the network.
- Solana Centralized Limit Order Book Serum provides one of the best decentralized trading experiences.
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Launched in March 2020, Solana aims to address scalability issues in other smart contract blockchains such as the face of Ethereum. While it is still in the early stages of development, users can already take advantage of the full range of features on Solana.
Why use the Solana Ecosystem?
From the perspective of the average user, the biggest advantage of using Solana is the high speed and low cost of the network. With transactions priced at fractions of pennies, the fees for interacting with dApps are barely noticeable. In addition, other complex transactions are also much cheaper. The cost of minting NFTs, which can return users a huge amount of gas on Ethereum, is drastically reduced in Solana, even during times of heavy network congestion.
Solana’s consensus mechanism also helps mitigate one of the biggest problems that other competing blockchains face, namely, front-end transaction processing. With Solana’s Proof-of-History consensus, transactions are sealed and processed in the order they are submitted for validation, making it nearly impossible for other users to take advantage of the transaction stack. Forward run protection improves the end user experience and makes Solana a more attractive platform for future developments such as token stock trading.
Wallet selection
Getting started with Solana requires setting up a compatible wallet.
For those looking for a Web3 wallet in a browser similar to MetaMask, the two best options on the market today are Phantom and Solflare. Both wallets are unguarded and offer features such as SOL staking, token exchanges in the wallet, and NFT support with full video and audio capability. The Solflare browser extension is only available for Firefox, while Phantom boasts compatibility with Google Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Mobile wallet options are more limited. The Exodus Wallet might be the best option available today, in part because it allows SOL to be installed. However, as Solana grows, more wallets should start offering mobile versions; Solflare has already announced that it will develop a mobile app.
Once you have decided which wallet to choose, download the addon or app from the wallet website and follow the steps to create a new wallet. Make sure to write down your seed phrase and store it safely. If you already have a seed phrase from an existing Solana wallet, you can import it into Phantom or Solflare after downloading the browser extension.
After setting up your wallet, the next step is to add some money so you can start using the network. Solana’s original code is SOL; You need it to pay the transaction fee. The easiest option is to use a central exchange like Coinbase or Kraken to buy SOL using fiat. Once you have purchased some SOL, follow the steps to withdraw coins to your Solana wallet. In Phantom and Solflare, you can find the address of your wallet above the browser extension; Click it to copy the address to your clipboard and paste it directly into your checkout transaction.
Trading on Solana
Once you create a wallet and transfer it via SOL, you will be able to start exploring Solana’s growing DeFi ecosystem.
All DeFi applications in Solana’s ecosystem can operate through a centralized limit order book (CLOB) exchange called Serum. Made possible by Solana’s incredibly fast block times, Serum allows any application on the network to share liquidity. Unlike dApps like Uniswap, Serum does not use liquidity pools to facilitate trades; It matches sellers and buyers like a traditional exchange instead. For the end user, this means less slip and less price fluctuations when using the serum.
Trading on serum is simple. After navigating to websiteAnd Enter the application by clicking on the “Trade on Serum DEX” button. Next, connect your wallet using the button in the upper right corner of the page. Whether you’re using Serum or any other app, you’ll usually find the Connect button in the same place on every site.
Once you have connected your wallet, you can start making transactions. First, select your trading pair from the dropdown box on the left of the site. Next, create an order using the fields on the right side. In the example below, you buy Crypto Briefing SOL on the SOL/USDT market. Select the trading pair of your choice, enter the price at which you want to buy or sell the asset in the top box, and then enter the quantity you want to buy or sell in the box below. It should fill in the last box on the right and automatically show the cost of your order.
After once again checking that everything is correct, send the order by clicking on the buy or sell button. In this case, the button says “Buy SOL”. Depending on the wallet you are using, you may need to click on permissions before starting your trade. Make sure to give trustworthy sites permission to interact with your wallet; Otherwise you may lose your money. Once your order is fulfilled, you will need to scroll down to the page and click the “Settle” button for your newly purchased asset. The funds will not appear in your wallet until you settle them, so be sure to remember to do so after each transaction.
Trading on serums is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Solana. If you are looking for more advanced trading options, be sure to check out Mango Markets. The user interface is similar to Serum, and it also allows users to take advantage of margin trading on-chain and perpetual contracts for specific assets.
Raydium is one of Solana’s most popular apps. While Serum only uses the order book to facilitate trades, Raydium takes a dual approach. Using Serum’s order book along with its liquidity pools, Raydium can go through both to find the best trades with minimal slippage. In addition, since Raydium uses liquidity pools, users can provide liquidity and earn interest from fees generated by the protocol. Currently, users can get 15.93% APY through the SOL/USDC pool on Raydium.
Solana’s NFT ecosystem has also seen growth after the first “NFT summer” for cryptocurrencies. Arguably the best market for Solana-based non-breeding things today is solanart. Over the past few weeks, Solana’s NFTs have been booming, with minimum prices for popular projects like the Degenerates Abbey Academy rising at a rapid rate. Last week, Solana Monkey Business NFT was sold for $2.1 million. It was minted for 2 sols only a few weeks ago. While Solanart is not as streamlined as the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, it does have all the basic functionality of buying, selling, and discovering NFTs on Solana.
Getting to know Solana early can give users a serious advantage over other market participants. The network is growing at a rapid rate and is likely to become more popular as the crypto space grows in the future.
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this feature, the author owns BTC, ETH, and many other cryptocurrencies.
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