Solana's future prospectus advocated by Firedancer: Is it advisable to invest in Solana now?
Solana, a leading blockchain in the digital capital market, is gearing up for a significant upgrade with the deployment of Firedancer, a new validator client. This innovative solution, developed in C and C programming languages, is expected to revolutionize Solana's network by increasing the quantity and diversity of validating nodes.
Firedancer's advancements aim to address a current obstacle on Solana - latency, which poses a challenge for speed-sensitive applications such as high-frequency trading. By incorporating the QUIC protocol, Firedancer enables parallel and interference-free data transmissions, using UDP for lower latency communications.
One of Firedancer's key features is its use of Kernel Bypass for direct and optimized access to network hardware. This direct approach is expected to significantly reduce consensus latency, bringing it down to approximately 150 milliseconds.
Firedancer's modular design facilitates updates and maintenance without interrupting validation. Its modular mosaic architecture efficiently distributes tasks between the node's subsystems, improving its scalability and facilitating updates without interruptions.
The Turbine protocol in Firedancer contributes to the efficiency of segmented block and internal metadata propagation. This optimization is expected to accelerate block propagation, enhancing Solana's overall performance.
AVX512 extensions in Firedancer accelerate cryptographic calculations, particularly for Ed25519 digital signatures. This acceleration is anticipated to further boost Solana's speed and throughput.
Currently, Solana operates with both Firedancer and Agave clients at the same time, limiting the effective speed and total throughput of the network. By the end of 2025, it is expected that Firedancer will be deployed across the entire Solana network, replacing Agave and significantly increasing the network's performance.
In parallel developments, the Alpenglow protocol is working to reduce consensus latency, aiming for a similar goal as Firedancer. Hybrid configurations like Frankendancer are being developed to combine the stability of Agave with the performance improvements of Firedancer.
Solana-compatible blockchains like Fogo prioritize speed by reducing geographical decentralization, locating nodes in strategic urban centers. This approach is expected to further enhance Solana's network performance.
Firedancer is currently in the advanced testing phase on Solana's mainnet with limited validators. By the end of 2025, Firedancer is expected to be fully operational on the Solana mainnet, positioning Solana as a leading infrastructure in the digital capital market.
