DamoTalks Interview #19 Recap: Solana, the World-Class Blockchain System — How to Build a Complete Ecological Landscape

Introduction:
DamoTalks Issue 19
Topic: Solana, a world-class blockchain system — how to build a complete ecological landscape?
Guest:
Chris Ba — Head of Solana Asia Pacific
Ori — Co-Founder of Orca
Moderator: Lu Fei — Co-Founder, TokenDamo
Live Translation Assistant: Ling Ling
Live Streaming Time: 21 April 2021 15:00 pm

Guest Introduction.
It’s a great pleasure to have Chris ba, the head of Solana China, please let Chris introduce himself briefly.
Hey everyone! Thank you very much TokenDamo for hosting this event, you can call me Chris :)
I graduated from UCLA in 2017 and entered the blockchain “rabbit hole”, working on various businesses such as investment, exchange, and startup. I joined the Solana team last year and have seen Solana’s rocketing growth in just a few months, so today I’ll have the pleasure of introducing our project and sharing some of the latest developments.

Q & A (10 questions)

Luffy Q1: Please tell us about the Solana project, what problems does Solana solve? And what vision does Solana hope to achieve in the future?

Chris Ba: Solana is a fast, secure, censorship-resistant public chain that aims to provide an open infrastructure for global-scale applications. scalability.

Solana’s core strengths are
Scalability: Solana is capable of supporting over 50,000 transactional transactions per second while maintaining a block-out time of 400 milliseconds.
Decentralisation: Using the Turbine block propagation protocol, the platform can support thousands of nodes while maintaining performance and scalability.
Low execution costs: The network transaction cost for 1 million transactions is estimated at $10.
Our mission is to support all high-growth and high-frequency blockchain applications (i.e. Internet-scale applications) and to provide open finance to the world.

Luffy Q2: Solana Last month, Solana’s main website reached its 1 year anniversary, what are some of the exciting things Solana has achieved in this year? Have there been any achievements that have exceeded the team’s expectations? Can you share a little bit about the past year’s journey with us?

Chris Ba: On the first anniversary of Solana’s main web launch, 13 billion transactions, 69 million slots, 63 million blocks and 55 trillion hashes have occurred in the blockchain. In terms of ecology building, we have over 100+ partners to work with/integrate with, details of the project can be viewed on the official page https://solana.com/ecosystem

These achievements have exceeded our expectations. In the past year, the team’s focus has been mainly on building a stable and reliable underlying blockchain foundation — only by laying a solid foundation will we be able to attract more and more applications. As the performance of the mainnet stabilises, Solana’s next focus will be on integrating and collaborating with more projects, as well as supporting and building more outstanding native projects through funding programmes and hackathon.

Luffy Q3: The whole Solana team is responsible for this success, how is the team doing now? Can you tell us more about it?

Chris Ba: Solana’s team is mainly composed of former Qualcomm, Intel and Dropbox engineers with extensive experience in databases, distributed computing and physical hardware, which is very helpful in optimising blockchain performance, especially the use of Proof of History (PoH), which has enabled Solana to achieve TPS in the tens of thousands and millisecond confirmation times.
For details of the team members, please refer to an old article in our WeChat public website: “Get to know Solana’s team of blockchain fanatics” https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CCXG1CyefIz3l1BBUvMWgg
Luffy Q4: People are currently criticising the performance of Ethernet, but ETH 2.0 is still a long way off, how do you see ETH 2.0 and scalability solutions like sharding and L2, and what advantages does Solana have for them? Why is Solana able to scale easily with Layer 1?

Chris Ba: There is a lot of uncertainty in the current ethereum ecosystem, whether it’s ETH 2.0, sharding or L2 solutions, they are either technically difficult or have other issues such as liquidity fragmentation or composability.
Solana, on the other hand, solves exactly the current pain points of ethereum: 1. low fees: the average cost of each transaction is only 0.000005 SOL (about $0.00001), liquidity mining daily “collection of food” is not too good.
2. Very fast confirmation time: the average confirmation time is 400ms, a transaction can be confirmed in less than a second, very fast.
3. Scalability: Solana does not need to use sharding technology, ensuring the consistency and integrity of the ledger and keeping the perfect combinability between protocols.
The reason for this ease of scaling is Solana’s unique scaling solution, at the heart of which is a decentralised clock called Proof of History (PoH), which is designed to solve the time problem in distributed networks that lack a single trusted time source. With a verifiable delay function, PoH allows each node to generate timestamps locally using the SHA256 algorithm. Thus eliminating the need to broadcast timestamps across the network, thus increasing the efficiency of the entire network.
The innovations of Solana have been introduced in several articles by Blue Fox Notes. Interested readers can click on this link to read and learn, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/4uFu5K6CcbcMq1kzx2ruAA. You can also follow Solana’s public website or official blog to learn more about the specific innovations.

Luffy Q5: High performance is an important indicator of a public chain, what are the other advantages of Solana to attract developers to join the ecosystem? What kind of support does Solana offer at the developer level?

Chris Ba: Solana has always been very supportive of developers developing applications in its ecosystem, and we give very strong support. We have a long-running funding programme for good projects at https://solana.com/grants, which provides them with
Targeted funding, VC referrals, technical support, recruitment support, marketing, legal resources and more. The AMA’s decentralised exchange, Orca, has received support from the Solana Foundation.
Solana has also held several global hackathons https://github.com/solana-labs/defi-hackathon, the second of which had over 3,000 registrants and over 100 projects submitted by developers from around the world, garnering a lot of attention and support from developers, with a number of outstanding A number of excellent projects emerged.
Here is the project demo page for the hackathon: https://airtable.com/shrQvOZRiXN0YfO5U/tblnrOhKW8m8WF9d3

On the other hand, we are trying to lower the barriers to development for developers, and our partner Decentology is one such project. With its DappStarter platform, programmers developing dapps on Solana can get started in as little as 15 minutes, and developers can create custom dapp source code (including smart contracts, web UI, unit tests, server-side APIs, etc.) with just a few mouse clicks.
DappStarter solves a huge challenge in the blockchain space: developer tools. Developers new to the blockchain industry often struggle with learning new programming paradigms and a lack of development tools, so Solana simplifies the process of developing applications in JavaScript and TypeScript to get up and running with custom full-stack source code faster. Developers can draw directly from our documentation and tutorials for the different technical modules without having to start over, including the Getting Started tutorial, SPL tutorial, Serum DeFi module, Wormhole deployment and more.

Luffy Q6: Solana’s recent ecological expansion has been quite rapid, with more than 120 projects. what role does Solana’s project team play in the ecological expansion? Are you satisfied with the progress of Solana’s ecological layout so far?

Chris Ba: As answered in the question above, Solana is very strong in supporting ecological projects, and we believe that this investment is very important in the early stages of ecological development to allow the underlying infrastructure to develop quickly; and as the ecology flourishes, Solana project parties should act more as a neutral, objective and independent position to enrich developer tools and As the ecosystem flourishes, the Solana Project should act more as a neutral, objective and independent position, enriching developer tools and further improving performance, allowing various projects to grow freely according to the market needs.
We have also launched a series of eco-funding partnerships, such as Coin98 in Vietnam, and OKEX, MXC in China.
https://www.coindesk.com/okex-mcx-invest-solana-projects-defi-arms-race
Personally, I am quite satisfied with Solana’s current ecological layout, at the growth level, and there will be a large number of projects coming into our ecology including Europe’s Gaode Navigation Maps.me, an internet application that has just closed a $50 million funding round and brings its 140 million registered users into Solana; the lending project Oxygen, the communication application Kin, and the underlying DeFi universe Serum and other powerful applications. There are also a number of upcoming projects, so keep your eyes peeled for the latest news from Solana.

Luffy Q7: At the ecological application level, Solana has already introduced Maps.me, which has hundreds of millions of users, into its ecology. Will Solana take on traditional internet traffic as its direction for future new users?

Chris Ba: Maps.me will be built on top of Solana and, through the recently launched FTX Oxygen project, will bring the 140 million users who already have access to it to access the financial applications of the district centre, including money transfers, lending, and money exchange.
As for connecting to traditional internet traffic, Solana aims to create a blockchain that can scale at the IoT level and does not rule out the possibility of taking over traditional internet traffic.
In terms of breaking the circle I can talk about a game I am personally looking forward to: Star Atlas is a large scale Metaverse category mmo universe exploration game that combines state-of-the-art chain real-time graphics, multiplayer video games and decentralised financial technology.

It uses Virtual Engine 5’s Nanite real-time graphics technology to deliver cinematic video game visuals, and Solana protocol-enabled blockchain technology to provide a serverless, secure gaming experience. Within the Star Atlas game, players can acquire and trade NFT tokens and create an economy that replicates real-world assets and ownership of tangible assets. It can be accessed at https://staratlas.com/
Solana as an underlying public chain with upwards of 50,000 TPS, millisecond confirmation times, and a solution that scales with Moore’s Law — let’s just say that the imagination of our ecology is very large, and what kind of killer circle-breaking apps will blossom on it, I cannot predict, and that This is where the blockchain and Solana’s infinite appeal lies.

Luffy Q8: Wormhole has been mentioned several times when we read about it. What role does it play?

Chris Ba: Wormhole is a cross-chain asset bridge that is used to exchange assets between Ether and Solana in both directions. This is done by connecting a Solana wallet (e.g. sollet) to an ethereum wallet (e.g. Metamask) so that users can quickly exchange assets between the wallets, e.g. convert native ETH (ERC20 tokens) to Wrapped ETH (SPL tokens) in Solana format, and then interact with the Solana app. The conversion is the first step.
The two-way exchange of assets is the first step, and the Solana technical team and related development teams are actively advancing the development of EVM (Ethernet Virtual Machine) support, which will then allow for more than just the exchange of assets, as the Ether code will be seamlessly and quickly compatible with Solana, thus extending the Solana ecosystem to the entire Ether (and even Bitcoin).

Luffy Q9: Let’s ask a gossipy question. We know that SBF, the co-founder of the FTX exchange, is very close to Solana, and that the FTX exchange led the development of the Serum decentralised exchange, what is Solana’s relationship with SBF, FTX, Serum and Alameda Research?

Chris Ba: Haha, that’s a question a lot of people are interested in, isn’t it? It’s a complicated relationship, so first I’ll give a quick rundown of each project.

Solana is a secure, fast, high-performance underlying public chain (Layer 1) that we aim to provide an open infrastructure for global-scale applications.

Serum, the first DeFi project in the Solana ecosystem and the world’s first fully decentralized exchange to support cross-chain transactions without third-party trust, was created by Project Serum and other experts in the crypto asset and DeFi space. It is also important to mention that Serum is not being developed by FTX, but that every member of the Serum community is contributing to the building of Serum, with Sam as part of the Serum advisory team. With several recent projects built on Serum, Serum’s role has gradually changed to that of the underlying DEX protocol for the Solana ecosystem. Serum’s team of advisors can be viewed here: https://projectserum.com/

SBF is the co-founder and CEO of FTX and the founder of Alameda Research. SBF was honoured to be listed in Forbes’ list of the top 30 under 30 in 2021. According to New York Magazine, SBF said in a recent interview that its net worth is approximately $10 billion.

Alameda Research, a digital currency quantitative trading firm founded by SBF in 2017, now has over $100 million in assets under management. In less than a year of existence, it has become one of the largest liquidity providers and market makers in the digital currency market.

FTX was founded in May 2019 and is now ranked #4 in the global exchange rankings. With 90+ contract trading, index contracts, equity pass-throughs, prediction-based markets, leveraged tokens, volatility contracts, options products and automated OTC. Popular with traders for its low rates, free withdrawal fees, and diverse and innovative products, it has grown very quickly recently and in many people’s minds is well positioned to make a full impact on the top tier exchanges.

As for why Serum and the subsequent series of DeFi applications (Maps.me, Raydium, Oxygen, etc.) were built on the Solana blockchain, I think the ultimate reason is Solana’s excellent performance: it’s fast, cheap and can really achieve 50,000 TPS, while the performance will expand as the hardware is updated and iterated, so to speak. Solana is “infinitely scalable”. So it’s no wonder that SBF has stood up for Solana on several occasions.

Luffy: Let’s talk about Orca next, hand the microphone over to Ori and ask Ori to introduce herself.

Ori：Hi all, I’m Ori! I’m an engineer, designer, and one of the cofounders of Orca. I’m Chinese-American and speak a little Mandarin, but not too fluently. So thanks for bearing with my translated answers!

After studying Computer Science at Stanford, I worked at startups in the Bay Area and New York and a design firm in Tokyo before accidentally stumbling into the world of crypto. These days, I’m a jack of all trades, working across the stack to make Orca your favorite project in DeFi!

Luffy:As a new project of Solana Ecology，What problems did it solve? Can you share with us any advantages of Orca?

Ori：Orca is the only pure AMM DEX on Solana. As our users love to say, using Orca is incredibly easy! Our users enjoy speedy swaps, minimal transaction fees, and handy features like our Fair Price Indicator, which automatically labels each trade with “Fair Price,” “Great Price,” or “Rate Warning” by comparing the current rate on Orca to CoinGecko.

We’re really proud of what we’ve built so far, but we’ll continue working hard to provide the best possible experience for our traders and liquidity providers. That includes both UX and capital efficiency!

Luffy:Orca started with two developers, so why did you choose to develop on Solana?

Ori：My cofounder, YM, and I originally started by building on Ethereum. When DeFi summer hit, the limits of Ethereum became incredibly obvious, and we started looking into other solutions. Solana’s performance stood out, of course — 50k transactions per second and $0.01 transaction fees are a league above the competition. Once we started speaking with the Solana team and got to know their vision, values, and engineering abilities, the choice became obvious!

Luffy:What’s next for Orca? governance tokens in your plan?

Ori：We have an exciting roadmap for Q2, including the Solar Bridge (a UI for Wormhole, a decentralized bridge from Ethereum to Solana), Stable Pools (highly efficient trading of stablecoins), and localization of the UI, including into Mandarin!

But our number one priority is the feature you’ve all been waiting for… an ORCA governance token and liquidity mining mechanism! We’re working hard on it now, and excited to share it with all of you.

Luffy:Orca’s NFT airdrop has ended. Are there any plans for future airdrops?

Ori：We’re so glad that users love our Collectibles, which are special tokens you can earn by participating in the Orca ecosystem!

Our Collectibles are actually not NFTs, though they’re similar in spirit! This is because they are fungible (e.g. any one GUPPY is interchangeable for another.)

As for future airdrops… it’s currently CLOWNFISH season! This fish loves to party.

It’ll be airdropped in early May to people who swap regularly on Orca (https://orca.so) for the rest of April!

Here are the questions from the community.
1.@Aiyitong 俗人：Solana as a new generation public chain, are there any other projects we should look forward to besides the ones that are live now? Or projects that we can get involved in early on

Chris Ba: The projects that came out of the Solana & Serum hackathon are very noteworthy and cover a range of categories including decentralised transaction protocols, DeFi tools, lending protocols and more. The second winning teams or projects were: Mango Markets, a decentralised margin trading platform; PsyOptions, an American-style options protocol; Parrot, a synthetic debt protocol; Synthetify, a synthetic asset protocol; Solrise, a P2P asset management and trading protocol; SerumTaxTime, a tax tool; DTF, an asset management follow-on protocol; and Sushi Warrior, a game. DTF, the game Sushi Warrior, the liquidity solution Tenderize Me, and the voting tool COPE.
There are also some very useful tools such as Phantom wallet, prediction market Hedgehog, decentralised exchange Orca, etc. A number of products are being tested recently.

2.@213:The dex market is so competitive, where is orca’s moat? What are the considerations and plans for user experience retention and future planning?

Ori：We believe that Solana will grow into a vibrant ecosystem as more developers learn about its strengths. This will be a competitive moat that we inherit from Solana.

Within Solana, we’ll continue to be competitive DEX by being the best place for people to trade. That means continuing to improve our user experience, but also building features that improve capital efficiency, like more efficient curves.

3@taoxing:What are the future scenarios for the use of orca’s NFT?

Ori ：The best way to think about our Collectibles is, as the name suggests, something to collect (e.g. baseball cards, trophies, or video game achievements). They have value because people like them, not because of any particular utility!

We plan on eventually providing more ways for users to show them off, but we don’t plan on directly providing financial incentives for holding them. They exist primarily to be cute, fun pieces of art :)

— — — END — — — -