Which is the better opportunity? Which one will ultimately make investors the most money?
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That is the topic of this article. So far this year, Cardano is up over 900 percent, and Solana’s gone up over 13,000 percent.
So both have had crazy growth in 2021. At the time of this recording, Cardano and Solana are neck and neck in the top 10, and they keep swapping positions every week or so.
Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will understand both protocols better and make a more informed decision regarding investing. And as I find it a bit annoying when a presenter finishes saying both are equal.
I will reveal if I had to choose which one it would be.
So in this article, we’ll be looking at a snapshot overview for each and including the key metrics. Then something really important is the use cases what is going on with the protocols right now. I’ll cover the main pros and cons, and then we’ll finish with the summary and my thoughts on each.
Two of Crypto's powerhouses are going up head to head. Is there a superior chain? Is there a clear winner? Let’s do this.
Quick Stats
We have Cardano versus Solana, first up the founders Charles Hoskinson versus Anatoly Yakovenko, and Charles Hoskinson has an academic background, his background is in maths highly educated versus Anatoly Yakovenko who’s most well known for his time at Qualcomm, working as an engineer for several years their consensus mechanism is both proofs of stake.
So they’re both very similar. Where it differs Cardano’s innovation is the Ouroboros platform built using the scientific method. A very strong, robust peer-reviewed platform. Versus the innovation from Anatoly, which he says was a caffeine tequila-induced epiphany in the middle of the night, which was proof of history where he timestamps transactions.
Now to understand this think about Bitcoin and where Bitcoin and Ethereum use proof of work, which involves a computer trying to solve a hard equation. The idea is that fake computers can’t solve real problems. So because this takes time to solve the problem and make sure that the blocks are put in the right place, Bitcoin and Ethereum are quite slow. The breakthrough with proof of history is the timestamps. So he’s able to say which blocks can go in front of the other using a timestamp. And this is why it’s so much faster.
Next, Cardano’s launched their smart contract functionality back in august, which was about five years in the making. Solana did their soft launch in February last year, and they still classify themselves as being in beta. When it comes to supply, they both have a fixed supply. Cardano’s a lot higher, 45 billion versus 500 million for Solana. All things being equal, a fixed supply is going to be better than unlimited. And I don’t necessarily think that such a large supply is an issue.
Now when it comes to speed, this is how they clock in right now. Cardano is doing around 250 transactions per second, and Solana can do up to 65 000. Now yes, with the hydra upgrade, Cardano will be able to scale into the millions. But then Solana’s big bet is on hardware. And as hardware improves, then they too will be able to scale into a million. But I think it’s important to know what can they do as of right now. And then when it comes to the average cost per transaction, it’s about 40 cents for Cardano, and it’s fractions of one cent for Solana. So as of right now, Solana is the faster blockchain with a much lower average transaction cost.
So on paper right now, Solana’s key metrics to me do look stronger. Solana, as of right now, has crazy fast and cheap transactions, which are what most people have been asking for. But the big question is, well, what about the next five years? I assume that’s what many of you want to know. Well, another key thing to look for is what is happening with the networks’ adoption and growth. What are the biggest use cases going on right now for both protocols, and what are their biggest projects. Well, I’ve pulled together a couple of clips from each company so you can hear from the horse’s mouth the latest updates and what’s going on with each company. So let’s start with Cardano, and this was their summary from their big conference that happened this year.
Cardano Use Cases
“Let’s take a look at just a few. The collaboration between you and a quant focuses on verifying identities and authenticating documents for fraud protection. The ultimate aim is to open up finance and power a real phi experience along with the tala prism input output’s decentralized identity platform. This will ensure that Cardano stays on top of the evolving global regulatory environment while giving everyone access to decentralized finance Defi has done better. One of the most exciting partnerships announced at the summit brings together a dish network and boost mobile. This collaboration aims to use the blockchain to unlock value for the dish network’s 11 million tv subscribers and 9 million wireless users.
At the same time, we are bringing decentralized identity into the mainstream. At the end of the summit on the stage at Laramie, Wyoming, Charles Hoskinson brought on a special surprise guest and Coti CEO Shahaf bar Geffen. They announced that Koti would be the official issuer of Jed, a new stable coin for Cardano.
ISnput output global sees a decentralized future with entrepreneurs from Africa leading the way. That’s why we were thrilled to announce a six-million-dollar fund to support entrepreneurs based on the continent looking to build on Cardano. Now decentralized finance relies on the ability to access accurate and dynamic information securely. We announced a new strategic collaboration with chaining labs to support developers building smart contracts for Cardano DeFi applications. Access to real-world databases will be supplied through Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks which enable smart contracts execution around data sets such as cryptocurrency rates, election results, weather, and more. Another important partnership we announced but one you may have missed, was with oasis pro. We’re joining forces to target the bond issuance market. The point is to create a new trading system that uses decentralization to allow citizens of developing countries to participate in primary bond markets. Oasis pro already facilitates digital cash for securities transactions. And the addition of the Cardano blockchain will help remove middlemen while cutting fees. On the enterprise side, we announced a partnership with luxury spirits brand straight brands implementing a tala scan for tamper-proof software which can record and store data securely and instantly verify the origins of its products throughout the supply chain. It’s set to deliver 4 million bottles before the end of 2022, which should be more than enough to celebrate. We also saw announcements on the NFT side from the Cardano foundation with leading esports player rival a sustainability venture committed to planting a million trees with verity, and Mergo’s ken Kadoma announced a new 100 million venture fund for building on Cardano.”
So lots of great projects are going on behind the scenes with Cardano, from digital identity to their new stable coin Jed. Okay, next up, we have Solana, and there was a conference that happened just last week, and they too gave a summary update of what’s going on with Solana.
Solana
“Take a look. And it has done a ton of transactions. So many of those are votes, and that’s by design, but a bunch of those are non-votes. They’re now application transactions. If you look at things like chain crunch, there are about 700 TPS of just people using the network. I think that’s more than everyone else combined at this point. The ecosystem has been exploding, and it’s been truly beautiful to watch, and this is what it looked like in March, October. This is what it looked like, and everyone that I know that’s trying to keep track of this ecosystem growth is starting to just give up and just focus on summary metrics and um and just watch it unfold, you know.
Phantom has been an incredible UX effort to make that initial onboarding of the browser wallet experience as slick and seamless, and easy as possible. And it’s just onboarded users so quickly they just, I think um you know maybe 48 hours before breakpoint started cost over a million wallet in our extension installs. And NFTs are a thing on Solana. You know only started in maybe June. You know megaplex is kind of the centerpiece of its 2.2 million NFTS; you know it’s around a billion dollars of NFT market cap on Solana.
The audience is another, you know, incredible growth story we first, you know talked to Raniel and the audience team when they had I think 40 45 000 you know to wait for weightless people, and you know they’ve just been growing like a weed they’ve kind of saturated the electronic dance music space it’s decentralized Spotify you know for anyone that um that isn’t familiar. Another, you know, beautiful story, right users are sick of uh having their music taken down on all these platforms having you know DRM rights expire, and the music goes away. Solana devs, this is like the heart and soul. I mean it’s growing like a weed it seems like developers love Solana, which is also shown in kind of the team formation it’s not just people poking around, and you know and forking codebases they’re building businesses.”
Cardano Pros & Cons
This so let’s cover the main pros and cons for each. So we’ll cover three pros, and I’ll just cover what I think the biggest weakness is — starting with Cardano and the pros. First is it’s a really strong, robust, peer-reviewed solid platform. That’s taken years in the making and very well thought out.
Number two, Cardano does have a very strong community of investors. And you’ll notice as well whenever there is a downturn, Cardano’s price seems to be very resilient. The price doesn’t go as far down when compared to things like Solana. And number three, I do think there is a lot of potential with Cardano. And it’s really interesting to see how it flourishes over the coming years. And I would say the biggest weakness of Cardano for me I do find it quite slow-moving. So it took over five years to get the smart contract functionality live, and when it comes to the projects and developments, I wish that they could move faster as cryptocurrency is a lightning-fast market. And I don’t want Cardano to get left behind.
Solana Pros & Cons
When it comes to Solana's biggest pros, number one, it is lightning fast. And I believe it is the fastest blockchain on the market right now. Number two is the cost. You can’t deny its fractions of a penny making it one of the cheapest transaction costs on the market. And number three are its use cases. So it’s already making a massive dent in Defi, so it’s progressing at lightning speed as well. And for its biggest weakness, I would say it is the fact that it did crash a couple of months ago. So there is a question mark on the decentralization and security of the network.
Summary
Cardano and Solana are two of the big powerhouses in the crypto market right now. Both have seen ridiculous growth in 2021 so far, and congratulations to anyone who managed to get in early.
First, up to the similarities. I think they both have great platforms and a lot of potential over the coming years. Both have a similar market cap, so they’re both very similar in size, so the question is, is one going to be a better opportunity over the next few years. Ultimately, I have to say it’s still too early to be certain on either. I do think both have a great chance to be massively successful, and both can succeed together in parallel. However, if you held a gun to my head and said I had to pick one, it would have to be Solana. I do value businesses that can move and implement fast.
The fact that Solana is already doing incredibly well in DeFi. Currently, number three in total value locked where Cardano is still nowhere to be seen. And the fact that Solana is super cheap and fast right now without the need for any further upgrades does swing it for me.
So there you are, guys hope you enjoyed which chain do you prefer yourself. Let me know below and why.