Solana (SOL) wallet

Solana Wallet: Ultra-Low-Cost Transactions at High Speeds

Solana garnered attention in 2021 with massive gains of more than 12,000%! When cryptocurrencies shoot the moon, like Solana, investors pay attention.

If you're looking to get into Solana, you'll need a Solana wallet to store it. Atomic Wallet offers you just that and more! Continue reading to learn more about Atomic Wallet and Solana!

Solana is a relatively new project in the crypto world. What makes Solana so special? Solana is similar to Ethereum. It has smart contracts, it lets you buy and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs), etc. Solana does everything Ethereum does, but much, much faster. It's also way, way cheaper. Does that seem like a good reason to get some Solana in your Atomic Wallet today? Let's take a look at some of Solana's features, and I'll show you what to do if you're interested in getting some.

Solana Background

Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of the Solana Foundation, created Solana. He wanted to solve the problem of slow transaction time, network congestion, and high fees.

Yakovenko saw that crypto was becoming more mainstream and believed cryptocurrencies needed to transact as if they were mainstream. When you use a payment system, like Visa, it won't charge you massive fees and make you wait for 30 minutes per transaction. If that happens to you with Visa, you'd stop using it. The same applies to cryptocurrencies; why would you use them if it takes forever to process transactions?

Yakovenko went to work, developing a network that was fast and cheap. Let's take a look at some numbers.

Time is Money

Let's pull out some facts and look at these numbers. Solana can handle 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) on its mainnet versus Ethereum's 15 per second TPS. Solana's scalability is predicted to support up to 710,000 TPS on a standard gigabit network and a mind-boggling 28.4 million TPS on a 40-gigabit network.

Solana's transactions cost around 0.000025 Solana or about $0.002 at the exchange rate of early February 2022. Ethereum transaction costs are through the roof, almost $50 for one transaction! Now, you understand why Solana's price skyrocketed last year: quick processing and low costs.

Solana is known as the Ethereum killer. Yet, many say that Ethereum is too big to fail. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum has a first-mover advantage in its category of cryptocurrencies with smart contracts. It has a massive network, network outage, and 450,000+ ERC20 tokens. That made the new cryptocurrency look very green. Still, that doesn't mean it's going to fail.

The cryptosphere will always be full of competitions and rivalries. New technology will be built on old technology, and many coins will claim that they all do similar things. That said, some new technologies and features will always be specific to one currency. Speaking of unique technologies, what's Solana offering to the world?

Proof of… What Did You Say?

Proof-of-History (PoH) intends to prove a systemwide synchronized time.
You recall that the Solana blockchain can process more than 50,000 TPS, scalable up to 28.4 million. Now, imagine trying to coordinate the timestamps on each transaction. How would you manage this in a worldwide, decentralized, distributed system? Well, you come up with the novel idea of having blockchain itself generate the timestamp. Hold on! That'll get scientific.

To create a Solana timestamp with a verifiable block, a producer must first pass through a verifiable delay function. This function is triggered before the producer can access its slot to produce a slot. The function is triggered, a time is captured, and stamped onto the hash. The hash now has this timestamp, making it unique and appended to the block. This verifiable delay function is the PoH. Yakovenko says this gives the ledger an interesting property, inferring event occurrence once you examine it.

The PoH mechanism makes it very hard, even impossible, for other users to profit from stacking transactions. That's where miners pick and choose which transactions to validate based on the fees and rewards. The protection against this transactions' frontrunning ultimately improves your experience. It also makes Solana a more attractive platform for future developments.

Tokenomics of a Self-Correcting Digital Currency

Solana has a total of 489 million tokens. The current circulation is only at 260 million. At the start of each year, Solana releases x number of tokens based on the previous year's inflation rate. Solana leverages inflationary and deflationary mechanisms to balance the token supply and price.

Token staking is an inflationary mechanism. Staking percentages started at 8% and will slowly decrease until they hit 1.5% in 10 years. Solana moves on its own epoch cycles, which aren't parallel to standard years. To counter this inflation effect, Solana burns a percentage of each transaction fee. That reduces token supply to counter staking.

Through this double-edged sword method to control inflation, Solana aims to become a global cryptocurrency. The more transactions it has, the more deflationary it becomes. The more stakers it has, the more inflationary. That makes it a self-correcting, stable, and fast digital currency that everyone can use. What's more, you can use it, fast and easy, through your Atomic Wallet.

Let's discuss all Atomic Wallet offers you for your Solana wallet.

Atomic Wallet

Atomic Wallet is a desktop and mobile app, a multi-coin wallet that can store more than 300 different cryptocurrencies. It also lets you add any ERC20 token! How cool is that? It allows you to buy, sell, trade, stake, send, and receive crypto coins and tokens. As a reward for using Atomic Wallet, you'll receive up to 1% cashback for your transactions in the form of Atomic Wallet's token, AWC.

Follow these 5 quick steps to start using your Atomic Solana Wallet today:

1. Go to Atomic Wallet's main website, and download the installation file for your operating system. You can also go to the Apple Store or Google Play Store to get the mobile app for your mobile device.

2. Click Run Atomic, then click Create Password.

3. Enter a strong password, and click Set Password.

4. Save your 12-word seed phrase in a safe place. You need it to restore access to your newly created wallet. If someone gets your seed phrase, they can take over your wallet. That's why you shouldn't share it with anyone. Be very careful where you store your seed phrase.

5. Click Start Using Atomic, and you're ready to start trading!

Now, let's navigate 3 Atomic Wallet feature tabs.

1. Wallet

When you open the app, the first screen you'll see is the wallet interface. In the first tab, Wallet, you can see all the available coin balances and your wallet addresses for different currencies. You can choose to sort the tokens by volume and hide zero balances. Atomic Wallet allows you to add any custom ERC-20 (Ethereum-based) token to the wallet. That's a remarkable feature!

2. Exchange

The Exchange tab allows you to exchange tokens through partner exchanges, like ChangeNOW, Changelly, and ShapeShift.

3. Settings

In the Settings tab, you can change your password and store private keys securely in an encrypted form. You can also import an external wallet into the Atomic Swaps Wallet, but you have to enter a private key. You can also use the wallet to connect to another decentralized exchange or import external wallets.

Let's take a more detailed look at your Solana wallet's features. That way, you'll use your wallet more efficiently and securely.

Solana Wallet Features

Atomic Wallet's Solana wallet has many features. We'll go over 4 features in this article and how to use them.

1. Solana Wallet Address

A Solana wallet address is like your email address; you give it to anyone who wants to send you some Solana! Where's your address, and how do you use it? Easy; you'll find it on Atomic Wallet's main screen for each asset. Follow these 3 steps on Atomic Wallet to find your Solana wallet address:

1. Go to Solana (ETH) and open it (If you don't see what you're looking for, just start typing in the search bar)

2. Find send and receive at the bottom

3. Click on receive, and you'll see your wallet's address for that particular asset (Remember: each asset has its own wallet and address)

A wallet address is a long string of base58 characters. Base58 encoding is common in the crypto sphere. A Solana address's length varies from 32 to 44 characters.

An example of a Solana address is: 3n2C45yBiNapKh6EdDekesZccAFdwTatu46Eyw1UnKx2

Always ensure you're sending your Solana tokens to the correct Solana address, or you could lose it forever. The process is irreversible, so it's best to double and triple check before you click send. This applies to all cryptocurrencies, not just Solana. If your Solana goes to the wrong address, you won't ever see it again.

We can't emphasize this enough, always double-check your addresses!

2. Seed Phrases

When you create a new wallet, you'll need to create a seed phrase. It usually consists of 12 random words in a particular order. The words are really important, and so is their order. Jot your seed phrase down and place it somewhere for safekeeping. This is your one and only chance to set up your passphrase. We'll get to passphrases next but for now, save your seed phrase.

This phrase allows you to regain access to your wallet if you forget your password. It's also useful when you get a new device and re-download your wallet. You also need the phrase to activate your old wallet on your new phone or tablet. Don't forget to delete your wallet from your old phone. You should also wipe any data off the device once you've migrated everything to your new device.

3. Passphrases

You need to create your seed phrase to transfer your wallet to another device. You should also use a passphrase to enhance your wallet's security. You must ensure your crypto is as secure as possible.

A passphrase is like two-factor authentication but stronger. The questions are about things you know, not something you are/have. Many traditional security questions ask things like: what's your grandmother's maiden name, what city were you born in, what was your best friend's first name, etc. Cybercriminals can easily discover the answers to these questions. That's not the case with passphrase questions.

4. Private and Public Keys

You've probably heard the terms private and public key when talking about encryption. Your wallet needs a private key to generate a public key. The private key helps identify your wallet on the network. You also need to store it in a safe place, like your seed phrase. Learn how to store it properly in our blog post.

The public key is a hashed version of your private key. It's only available for decryption in one direction, for one time. The public key is decrypted to show the private key and send funds to the correct address. This one-way encryption is called hashing, and it's the most prevalent form of encryption in the cryptocurrency world.

5. Transaction Fees

Let's take a look at transaction fees. In the crypto world, fees are ever-present, and as a savvy crypto investor, you'll want to pay attention to how much it is costing you to transact.

When you buy cryptocurrencies on Atomic Wallet, you'll pay a flat 2% fee with a minimum fee of $10 per transaction. You'll have to check your bank, as they might charge a fee too. Finally, you'll need to pay a network fee or miners' fee.

When you exchange, send, or receive crypto on Atomic Wallet, you'll pay us zero fees. That said, you'll need to pay the network fees to that respective cryptocurrency network. You can check the network fee on Atomic Wallet's exchange pairs page for that transaction.

Final Thoughts

Cryptocurrency is becoming more mainstream, and many first-movers, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, are suffering from network congestion. That results in higher fees for you. For someone new to cryptocurrency, these high fees may be a major turn off. If you're new and experimenting, you might not want to plunk down big bucks right away. If your transaction fees are half (or more than half) of your initial investment, you might ask yourself: is this really for me?

That's where Solana comes in. Solana has high speeds and super low costs to transact. That helps alleviate the high fees and congestion on some first-mover networks. These low costs are also enticing to you, the new user. Solana wants you to feel welcome, not leave you out in the cold with high fees. Crypto is for everyone, and Solana is working to make it that way. They aim to fix the first mover challenges.

That said, Solana can offer great utility to corporations, banks, and other financial institutions. It has the PoH mechanism under its belt, which gives it massive scalability to process transactions and keep them all in order. It still has some way to go, but the possibilities are endless, and the future is very bright for this cryptocurrency.

Before making any investment, be sure to do your own research. Atomic Wallet isn't offering investment advice.

FAQ

What is Solana?

Solana is a new smart-contracts-based cryptocurrency, running on its own blockchain. It's ultra-fast, processing some 50,000 TPS. It's also ultra-cheap to use: transactions cost 0.000025 Solana. It was created by Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO at Solana Foundation.

What is a Solana Wallet?

A Solana wallet lets you interact with your Solana. Atomic Wallet allows you to buy, sell, send, receive, trade, use an exchange, and earn rewards with Atomic Wallet Coin (AWC). It's a great wallet to get if you're just getting started with crypto.

What is Proof of History?

Proof-of-History is Solana's specialty. It has a special way to create timestamps on transactions in a distributed network. That way, all transactions can happen in order. They're appended to the blocks as unique identifiers. That means they can be searched during any audits. The timestamps are also immutable, so no one can ever change the historical transactions' order. The timestamp is proof that a transaction occurred, hence the name PoH.

How long is a Solana Epoch?

Solana moves on its own epoch cycles, which are 48 hours in length. Its documentations often mention epochs in regards to time. Suppose you stake some Solana but you decide to unstake it. It'll take 3 epochs (or 6 days) for your staked Solana to return to your wallet.

What is the Solana SOLAR Bridge?

The SOLAR bridge was created for Solana. A blockchain bridge lets two different blockchain ecosystems exchange data and tokens. That's cool because you can have two different blockchains, like Ethereum ERC20 and Tron TRC20, interact without much trouble. A major issue in blockchain development is the lack of interoperability between different blockchains.

What language is Solana written in?

That's not a question we hear so often, but we're glad you asked it! Solana was programmed in Rust. This little-known programming language was developed in 2010. Even though not many projects run on Rust, developers still love it.

Resources

Atomic Wallet

Check the latest wallets and cryptocurrencies on Atomic Wallet's official website.

Atomic Wallet FAQ

Get answers to your questions in our own Atomic Wallet FAQ section.

Staking on Atomic Wallet

Ready to stake your tokens and earn? Check out Atomic Wallet's staking guide.

Solana Official Site

Learn more about Solana and its ecosystem on the official website.

Solana Blockchain Explorer

Follow the price, supply, active stake, and much more on the blockchain explorer.

Solana Fees

Learn more about how Solana keeps the fees low in this documentation.