Solana Firedancer is an upgrade to the client software that combines the works of all proof-of-stake chains to ensure that a consensus is reached among all stakeholders. Until now, Solana had just two client software: the one developed by Solana Labs and the second one developed by JitoLabs. Firedancer is the third client software that is expected to be released in 2025.
The Firedancer update enhances the scalability, productivity, and overall performance of the Solana blockchain ecosystem. More importantly, the firedancer update is expected to solve the issue of Solana congestion. You can learn more about the details of Solana Firedancer in this article.
The Issue Of Solana’s Congestion
Of late, the Solana blockchain is facing high congestion due to an overload of transactions. This has significantly reduced the speed of transactions and has made the Solana ecosystem less efficient.
What causes this congestion? Many of the transactions happening on the blockchain are spam and are done by bots rather than humans. The Solana network has also seen an influx of meme coin transactions, which has also slowed down other transactions.
How Does Firedancer Solve Congestion?
The Firedancer update tries to bring a solution to this problem. This update aims to scale up the security, reliability, and performance of the Solana blockchain network. The Firedancer update, created by Jump Crypto, solves the problem through the process of sharding, whereby a higher number of concurrent transactions can be conducted.
The Firedancer update is supposed to be more efficient than the existing Solana validator clients. It helps users operate for a low transaction fee while enabling a high number of transactions.
At present, the Solana blockchain network can only handle up to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS) in peak time and up to 50,000 to 65,000 TPS at other times. With the Firedancer update, the transaction rate on the Solana blockchain will be extended from 600,000 to 1,000,000 TPS. As it is third-party client software, Firedancer upholds the value of decentralization.
Key Features Of Firedancer
The central features of the Solana Firedancer update, which is a significant update to the existing features of the Solana network, are explained in detail here.
- Improved Performance and Scalability: With the Firedancer update, you can conduct more concurrent transactions with the help of the sharding mechanism. This improves the scalability and performance of the Solana network.
- High Reliability: The Firedancer update comes with many inherent advantages that improve its overall reliability. This improves the performance of the network and significantly reduces the downtime.
- High Efficiency: The high efficiency of the Solana Firedancer update helps finalize the transactions at a lower cost.
- Open-source Codebase: Firedancer has an open-source codebase that supports community-based contributions, which will improve over time.
- More failure points/options: The high number of validators increases the overall resilience of the Solana network and prevents bugs from attacking the network through a single point of failure.
- Compatibility with Existing Hardware: You don’t have to install new hardware to avail the usability of the Firedancer update. The performance boost is possible at a low cost, without any hardware updates.
- Flexible Deployment: The Firedancer architecture allows for flexible deployment without any downtime.
The Firedancer update gives Solana users sharding support, helps them optimize the management of the huge number of transactions, and reduces the volume of raw data transferred. All these features of the Firedancer update can open a new Solana-based decentralized finance marketplace.
When Will The Firedancer Update Be Released?
The Firedancer testnet has been operational since Q3 2023, and the mainnet is expected to be released in 2025, though the exact date has not yet been fixed. To make the mainnet launch speckless, the Jump crypto company has offered individuals a total of 1 million USD to incentivize their efforts at finding, reporting, and managing bugs.
The Bottom Line
Solana’s firedancer update could set a new standard for improving the efficiency of the Solana blockchain network. This update will help years navigate the central challenges in the usage of the Solana network. If used strategically, Firedancer can uplift the Solana network to a position where it can safely lead the blockchain platform in the coming years.
