Avalanche vs Solana: Comparison of Two Popular Blockchains, Which is Superior?

Bittime - Avalanche vs Solana, which is superior? We know that these two blockchains are the two strongest competitors for Ethereum at the moment. Both offer a similar user experience, namely high speed and low transaction fees for token transfers and interactions with smart contracts.

However, there are some important differences between Avalanche and Solana. This article will discuss how the two compare and help you choose the blockchain that suits your needs.

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A Quick Comparison of Avalanche vs Solana

*Data as of March 18, 2024.

Basic Features and Scalability

Avalanche

Avalanche (AVAX) is a highly scalable blockchain platform that supports smart contracts. The Avalanche mainnet was first launched in September 2020.

One of Avalanche's unique features is support for Subnets, which are customizable networks that benefit from the security offered by Avalanche validators. Subnets can consist of one or more blockchains.

The Avalanche Main Network consists of three blockchains:

• Platform Chain (P-Chain): used for staking and validation
• Contract Chain (C-Chain): used for smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps)
• Exchange Chain (X-Chain): used to send and receive funds

Interestingly, Avalanche C-Chain is compatible with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). This means developers familiar with Ethereum can easily move their applications to Avalanche and use the wide range of development tools available in the Ethereum ecosystem.

According to information on the Avalanche website, the Avalanche platform can handle more than 4,500 transactions per second, with an average transaction finalization time of just 0.79 seconds.

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Solana

Solana (SOL) is also a highly scalable platform for smart contracts. Solana uses Proof-of-Stake as a consensus mechanism and unique Proof-of-History, making Solana one of the most scalable blockchains today.

The Solana blockchain has been proven capable of handling more than 5,000 transactions per second. In fact, Solana once reached 65,000 TPS during testing. There are plans that could take Solana to over 600,000 TPS, but these are still theoretical concepts.

The main language used to develop smart contracts on Solana is Rust. Natively, Solana is not compatible with EVM. However, a project called Neon Labs is working on an EVM compatibility layer for smart contracts on top of the Solana blockchain.

Solana's main network launched in March 2020, about six months before Avalanche. Solana's native token, SOL, experienced a significant price increase in 2021 but then experienced a sharp price correction in the bear markets of 2022 and 2023. 

However, the SOL price recovers again in 2024 and reaches 80% of the current ATH (All-Time High) value.

Decentralization

Avalanche and Solana

Both use Proof-of-Stake to reach consensus on the state of the network. In addition, both are permissionless blockchains, meaning anyone can join as a validator by meeting transparent requirements.

Currently, the Solana network has around 1,850 validators. The number of Avalanche validators is slightly lower, at around 1,200.

To become an Avalanche validator requires 2,000 AVAX, which is equivalent to approximately $121,800 at the time of writing. According to the Avalanche project documentation, here are the hardware requirements for running an Avalanche node:

• CPU: Equivalent to 8 AWS vCPUs
• RAM: 16 GiB
• Storage: 1 TiB

Solana

Solana does not have a minimum requirement for the amount of SOL that validators must hold. However, validators must pay with SOL to send vote transactions, which can reach 1.1 SOL per day.

Overall, Avalanche and Solana have similar levels of decentralization currently. However, Solana's stricter hardware requirements could harm the project's decentralization in the long term.

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Ecosystem

Avalanche

Avalanche has a vibrant project ecosystem, especially in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. According to DeFi Llama, Avalanche is the 7th largest blockchain in terms of TVL (Total Value Locked) in DeFi protocols. Currently, Avalanche's TVL stands at $1.4 billion.

Avalanche has many native DeFi projects such as Trader Joe, and several well-known Ethereum-based DeFi protocols have also launched their versions on Avalanche, such as Aave, Curve, and SushiSwap.

Here are some notable projects that build on Avalanche:

• Aave (decentralized lending)
• Trader Joe (decentralized exchange)
• Benqi (liquid staking and decentralized lending)
• GMX (decentralized derivatives exchange)

Solana

Solana is also one of the most active blockchains today. Solana's DeFi ecosystem is much larger than Avalanche's, with a TVL of $6.7 billion. Additionally, Solana is much more popular when it comes to NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

For example, NFT marketplace Magic Eden has attracted many users and brought many NFT collectors and traders to Solana. Solana benefits significantly from high gas fees on Ethereum, which make trading NFTs very expensive.

Here are some notable projects building on top of Solana:

• Magic Eden (NFT marketplace)
• Orca (decentralized exchange)
• Helium (decentralized wireless network)
• Access Protocol (online content monetization)

Reliability

Avalanche

Since its mainnet launch in September 2020, Avalanche has demonstrated solid performance in terms of reliability. We discovered one significant outage on the Avalanche platform, which occurred in March 2023 when the X-Chain and C-Chain blockchains temporarily went down.

Solana

Reliability is one of Solana's main issues and is one of the main criticisms of the project. So far, the Solana network has experienced more than 10 major outages, sometimes lasting more than a day. Solana's most recent outage occurred in February 2024, when the network was down for almost 5 hours.

Conclusion

Avalanche and Solana are two high-quality blockchain projects and are the most serious competitors in the smart contract space. As shown in this comparison, both platforms are attractive options for anyone looking to use a highly efficient layer-1 blockchain.

How to Buy Crypto on Bittime

You can buy and sell crypto assets in an easy and safe way via Bittime. Bittime is one of the best crypto applications in Indonesia which is officially registered with Bappebti. 

To be able to buy crypto assets on Bittime, make sure you have registered and completed identity verification. Apart from that, also make sure that you have sufficient balance by depositing some funds into your wallet. For your information, the minimum purchase of assets on Bittime is IDR 10,000. After that, you can purchase crypto assets in the application. 

Learn Complete Guide How to Buy Crypto on Bittime. 

Monitor price chart movements of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL) and other cryptos to find out today's crypto market trends in real-time on Bittime.

Also read:

Solana (SOL) Future & Solana ETF Predictions

What is Solana (SOL) Pay?

How to Stake Avalanche (AVAX), Follow the Tutorial!

Avalanche (AVAX) Price Soars After Durango Upgrade

DISCLAIMER: This article is informational in nature and is not an offer or invitation to sell or buy any crypto assets. Trading crypto assets is a high-risk activity. Crypto asset prices are volatile, where prices can change significantly from time to time and Bittime is not responsible for changes in fluctuations in crypto asset exchange rates.