> Solana’s consensus protocol isn’t responsible for its performance, it’s the fact that they mandate higher performing machine SKUs and at least 500Mbs (recommending 1Gbs) internet speeds.
While it's true that Solana nodes have higher requirements than Ethereum full nodes (though not sure about validators?) I think it's incorrect to say that Solana's consensus protocol is not responsible for the high performance performance. Solana's consensus protocol (Tower BFT) works tightly with Proof of History. These two elements coupled together allow that the validator leader can be rotated asynchronously allowing performance increases in block propagation, throughput and ledger storage. Have you really had a good read of how Solana works? For eg. Sealevel allows for parallel contract execution, something which to my knowledge no other chain is capable of. All these innovations combined with the higher node requirements allow for TPS that no other chain is even close to and the Ethereum Modular vision will not achieve for quite some time (assuming it works).
> They also had to largely centralizing and have around 1000 validators.
Not sure what you're pointing to here. There was 600 validators a few months ago. Now there is 1000. 2000 additional validators are on devnet and would likely go onto mainnet in the coming months. How else should a blockchain decentralize then to add additional validators and try and spread the delegated stake around to reduce the number of nodes required to halt the network?
The fact that Solana went down for 17 hours not too long ago and there was nothing Solana labs could do to bring it back shows the validators are not run by themselves.
> Ethereum’s fees and performance are due to a push for decentralization instead of cranking up the max gas per block to a level that wouldn’t be feasible for someone at home to run a node.
Ethereum's fees are due to its wild success + it's very low TPS on the L1 because it was more or less the first of its kind. Subsequent chains like Solana have made thousands of small or large alternative engineering decisions that in sum allow for much higher throughput and lower fees. Solana doesn't use gas, perhaps you're thinking of BSC or AVAX?
Could you provide some pointers to resources that explain clearly how Solana's consensus protocol and its Proof of History work? I read the whitepaper, watched a couple of videos but still find it unclear. As some other people said, it is not different from Bitcoin's mechanism with difficulty of zero.
While it's true that Solana nodes have higher requirements than Ethereum full nodes (though not sure about validators?) I think it's incorrect to say that Solana's consensus protocol is not responsible for the high performance performance. Solana's consensus protocol (Tower BFT) works tightly with Proof of History. These two elements coupled together allow that the validator leader can be rotated asynchronously allowing performance increases in block propagation, throughput and ledger storage. Have you really had a good read of how Solana works? For eg. Sealevel allows for parallel contract execution, something which to my knowledge no other chain is capable of. All these innovations combined with the higher node requirements allow for TPS that no other chain is even close to and the Ethereum Modular vision will not achieve for quite some time (assuming it works).
> They also had to largely centralizing and have around 1000 validators.
Not sure what you're pointing to here. There was 600 validators a few months ago. Now there is 1000. 2000 additional validators are on devnet and would likely go onto mainnet in the coming months. How else should a blockchain decentralize then to add additional validators and try and spread the delegated stake around to reduce the number of nodes required to halt the network?
The fact that Solana went down for 17 hours not too long ago and there was nothing Solana labs could do to bring it back shows the validators are not run by themselves.
> Ethereum’s fees and performance are due to a push for decentralization instead of cranking up the max gas per block to a level that wouldn’t be feasible for someone at home to run a node.
Ethereum's fees are due to its wild success + it's very low TPS on the L1 because it was more or less the first of its kind. Subsequent chains like Solana have made thousands of small or large alternative engineering decisions that in sum allow for much higher throughput and lower fees. Solana doesn't use gas, perhaps you're thinking of BSC or AVAX?