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A transaction on Solana (SOL) would cost less energy than two Google searches

by Patricia

Solana (SOL), a resource efficient blockchain? This is the angle that has been worked on by the project teams, who have commissioned a report on the ecological cost of the network

The energy cost of Solana’s transactions

The battle against Proof of Work continues, as blockchains come under fire for being power-hungry. And Solana (SOL) has clearly chosen its niche, as it has started to offer regular reports on the energy cost of its network.

The latest one, written by someone independent of the project, points out that the way the payment network works makes it one of the most energy efficient:

On Solana, there is no need for energy-intensive mining, which means that the network is extremely efficient from an environmental point of view. Thanks to several key innovations, such as proof-of-history, or parallel processing, activities on Solana take far less energy than one might think.

The jab is clearly aimed at rival Ethereum (ETH), which has been particularly criticised in recent months for the consensus mechanism it still uses – for now. In particular, it has been criticised for consuming too much electricity for each NFT creation. A study published at the beginning of the year indicated that a European household could be powered for a month and a half with the energy used in this way.

One transaction on Solana is equivalent to two Google searches

This new report commissioned by Solana is likely to be a way to further differentiate itself from its competitors. Robert Murphy, the person in charge of the study, estimates that a transaction on the Solana network costs on average 0.00051 kWh, or 1,836 joules. This is the case for all activities, be it cryptocurrency exchanges, or NFT purchases.

The report compares this to other common activities. A transaction on Solana would cost less energy than two Google searches (2,160 joules). And much less than other activities:

Energy costs of different activities (Source: Solana's Energy Use Report)

Energy costs of different activities (Source: Solana’s Energy Use Report)


For comparison, a transaction on Ethereum costs 692,820,000 joules and for Bitcoin (BTC) it is 6,995,592,000 joules. Notably, Ethereum in its 2.0 version, with Proof of Stake, will still consume 126,000 joules per transaction.

The report further concludes by explaining that Solana wants to go further:

Without getting into a debate on the legitimacy of the various consensus mechanisms, it is clear that Ethereum’s major rivals, such as Solana or Cardano (ADA), intend to occupy the niche of reasonable blockchains in terms of ecological cost. At a time when criticism is mounting against Proof of Work, this could allow them to stand out more clearly.

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