Getting To Know Solana Founder Anatoly Yakovenko, From Qualcomm To Be Solana CEO

JAKARTA - Blockchain Solana has been one of the main players in the crypto industry in recent years. Because Solana is able to offer superior scalability and transaction speed solutions compared to old blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Namun, siapa sebenarnya sosok penting di balik blockchain Solana? Bagaimana perjalanan karier dan pendidikannya? Berikut ini profil singkat tentang CEO Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko, yang merupakan tersala di balik pengembangan blockchain Solana.

Short Profile Of Solana Founder Anatoly Yakovenko

Anatoly Yakovenko was born in Ukraine, but later moved to the United States to continue his education and work. Launching Coingape, he chose to study computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, despite a dot-com bubble that made many people hesitant to take on the field. Yakovenko realizes computer science is the basis for creating a future Solana blockchain.

After graduating, Yakovenko started his professional career by establishing an Internet Protocol (VOIP) startup called Alescere. He worked there for three years before joining Qualcomm, one of the world's leading tech companies.

At Qualcomm, Yakovenko handled various innovative projects, such as virtual products and augmented reality, 3D cameras, and mobile device operating systems. He worked at Qualcomm for more than ten years, and also worked in several other companies such as Mesosphere and Dropbox.

Solana Blockchain History

Yakovenko is an early cryptocurrency fan. He followed the development of Bitcoin and Ethereum closely. Yakovenko sees the great potential of blockchain technology, but is also aware of the limitations and challenges faced by the first-generation blockchain network (blockchain Bitcoin and Ethereum) such as the slow scalability and processing time of transactions. To overcome this, Yakovenko decided to create a new, more sophisticated and efficient blockchain.

In late 2017, Yakovenko along with several of his colleagues who are also former Qualcomm employees, such as Greg banyak, Stephen Akridge, and Raj Gokal, founded Solana Labs, the company that developed the Solana blockchain. Solana's name is taken from the famous beach name in California, where Yakovenko lives.

Solana Labs introduced a new mechanism called Proof-of-History (PoH), which allows networks to accurately record transaction times and sequences without relying on traditional consensus mechanisms such as Proof-of-Work (PoW) or Proof-of-Stake (PoS). With PoH, Solana can achieve high scalability at low cost.

Ethereum Killer

Solana began gaining popularity in 2021, when the price of the SOL token jumped from around $2 (Rp31 thousand) to US$250 (Rp3.9 million) within a year. Solana is dubbed Ethereum Killer aka Ethereum Killer, for offering better performance than the world's second-largest blockchain.

Solana is claimed to be able to process up to 65,000 transactions per second, while Ethereum is only about 15 transactions per second. Solana also has a much cheaper transaction fee than Ethereum, which often experiences a high spike in gas costs.

However, Solana is not without problems. In 2021, Solana's network experienced several blackouts, caused by excessive transaction loads. This raises doubts about Solana's reliability and network security.

Yakovenko acknowledged that the outage was a challenge the network had to face but also confirmed that the outage was indicating the strength of Solana's network, as it could recover quickly and without losing data.

Improve Solana's Performance

In 2023, Solana continues to improve its performance and ecosystem. The Solana network is no longer outages, and has 100% active time in the first half of this year. The Solana network also hosts various Web3 applications, such as games, NFT projects, and more, which attract many users and developers.

Yakovenko remains the CEO of Solana Labs, and is responsible for the development and innovation of the Solana blockchain. Apart from being the CEO of Solana Labs, Yakovenko is also actively sharing his knowledge and experiences about blockchain and crypto through social media and podcasts.

Anatoly Yakovenko has transformed into one of the important figures in the crypto industry, which has made a major contribution to the development and innovation of blockchain technology. He wants Solana's blockchain to be the best network in the world.