Polygon crypto vs Solana

What is Solana?

Solana is a layer 1 network focussing on low gas fees and scalability. It currently boasts transaction speeds of 50,000 transactions per second. To put this into perspective Ethereum manages about 15 transactions per second. To top this off Solanas fees are also very minimal, charging just $0.0001 per transaction, again let’s place this up against Ethereum which often charges anywhere from $10 right up to $100 per transaction.

Solana uses proof of stake (POS) as their consensus mechanism which allows miners to use existing coins to validate transactions and mints new ones. This is a much better system to use compared to what Ethereum uses which is proof of work (POW). This allows Solana to be much more scalable than Ethereum.

‍

Transaction speeds

One of Solanas big selling points is the fast transaction speeds, combined with the clean user friendly user interface this makes for a very clean and easy to use network especially for beginners.

With the network continuously holding transaction speeds of 2,000 transactions per second and plans to scale this right up to a theoretical 700,000 transactions per second Solana is possibly the fastest network available right now.

‍

Transaction fees

No one wants to pay high fees when sending payments. For the mass adoption of Crypto it is going to be crucial that transactions can be sent at a low cost, this is where Solana thrives boasting a cost pre transaction of just $0.00025 per transaction.

This makes for a very cheap network to use and it is possibly the cheapest to do so. Mix these low transaction fees with the fast transaction speeds and you have a network completing millions of transactions per day.

‍

Reliability

Solana has experienced some issues with reliability over the past couple months with the network coming down a small handful of times. This is due to a couple of different reasons, one is botting. Due to the low fees Solana is a perfect environment for bots to run wild especially in the NFT sector. The developers at Solana have since made changes and placed some ant botting measures in place which has slightly helped with this problem.

Solana is still technically in beta and the team is actively pushing out a lot of updates which is a great sign. For a beta network to be handling 50 million transactions per day while still in beta is impressive.

‍

Wallets

Solana offers a handful of native wallets all with clean user interfaces that all seem to be targeting the simplicity side of the network. You don’t need to worry about changing technical settings or dealing with any “blockchain” tech.

Some of the most popular Solana wallets are: Phantom, Sollet & Solflar.

Solana is not compatible with the wallet giant Metamask.

Even during the bear market Solana is experiencing a rapidly growing wallet user base, this tells us that even during turmoil in the markets users are still using Solana not just as an investment but also as a network. This is rare in crypto and definitely not something we want to ignore.

The most popular wallet for Solana is Phantom, a browser extension and also mobile wallet with a very clean UI and smooth operating experience. From this data from Tech Dreams we can see that between January 1st 2022 and January 30th 2022 there were 6.89 million unique Solana wallets.

‍

What is Polygon?

Polygon is a Layer 2 network (side chain) that is built alongside the Cryptocurrency Ethereum. Polygon was built to help Ethereum with its scalability issues and reduce the fees and increase transaction speeds where Ethereum lacks.

Polygons native token is MATIC and is used to pay the transaction fees when using the network.

Polygon uses the proof of stake consensus while Ethereum uses proof of work, this is what allows Polygon to boast such high transactions per seconds and such low fees. Ethereum is in the works over transferring the main net over to proof of stake and they hope to launch later this year.

‍

Transaction speeds

Polygon boasts an impressive transaction speed of 72,000 transactions per second, compare this to the layer 1 Ethereums 15 transactions per second and you can see how impressive this scalable layer 2 is.

‍

Transaction fees

With Polygon running proof of stake they can offer translation fees as low as $0.0005 but can range up to $0.2 per transaction. This is a vast improvement from Ethereums gas fees which can range from $8 per transaction right up to $100. All transaction fees on Polygon are paid with their native token MATIC.

‍

Reliability

Scalability is a huge issue for Ethereum hence why Polygon was created as a layer 2 to run alongside Ethereum. Polygon has had some minor down time in the last 12 months however developers have been quick to address the issue and roll out updates.

In March Polygon was down for 11 hours, all users’ funds were safe.

‍

Wallets

Polygon, much like Ethereum, is capable of running the popular browser wallet Metamask. There are a handful of other wallets that support Polygon such as Trust wallet & Exodus.

To use Polygon on Metamask you must first add the networks settings into Metamask.

Step 1: Open your Metamask and select Networks, click add network.

Step 2: Add the following information where requested.

Network Name: Polygon
New RPC URL: https://polygon-rpc.com or
https://rpc-mainnet.matic.network or
https://rpc-mainnet.maticvigil.com or
https://rpc-mainnet.matic.quiknode.pro
ChainID: 137
Symbol: MATIC
Block Explorer URL: https://polygonscan.com/
Click Save

Step 3: Send your MATIC tokens to your new Polygon wallet.

Conclusion

Both Solana and Polygon have their pros and cons. With Solana potentially being the more user friendly option and Polygon having the better scalability at the time being. Both networks are worth watching and thinking about adding to your investment portfolio. As always, do your own research.