Ethereum and Solana, who is the next EOS?

Author: Mu Mu, Plain Language Blockchain

The crypto community has always had numerous branches of different projects, from the earliest Bitcoin hard forks, LTC, Doge, and other "altcoins," to the later emergence of well-known factions like Ethereum, EOS, and Solana. They represent different ideas and directions, and while their ecosystems have some cooperation, they often attack each other due to differing viewpoints.

Due to Solana's strong performance this round, while Ethereum's performance has been relatively lackluster, members of the Solana community say ETH is like EOS of the past, while members of the Ethereum community retort that SOL is the one resembling EOS. When a project is considered similar to EOS, it implies that it is seen as facing an unfavorable outlook or entering a "bottomless abyss." So, which is more like EOS, ETH or SOL? Today, let's explore this from multiple angles…

01. Technical Route and Design Philosophy

As underlying public chains, Ethereum, Solana, and the former EOS all aim to break the "impossible triangle" of blockchain, striving to become secure, reliable, high-performance, and highly scalable infrastructures.

In terms of scalability solutions, Ethereum has chosen to transition from a POW consensus mechanism to a special POS consensus mechanism and plans to enhance network throughput in the future through sharding. It has temporarily shifted to a Rollup Layer 2-centric scalability solution, which has already made some progress.

In contrast, Solana has more aggressively utilized "Proof of History" to achieve faster transaction confirmations. This consensus mechanism allows for high performance and the ability to handle a large volume of transactions. Similarly, the former EOS also focused on being a high-performance blockchain, achieving extremely high throughput through the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism.

In terms of technical routes, Solana and EOS are more similar, both sacrificing some decentralization in pursuit of extreme performance, exposing issues of node centralization. However, unlike EOS, Solana is gradually optimizing and upgrading after experiencing several unstable outages. Ethereum's approach is considered more conservative, choosing a difficult and complex path to avoid sacrificing decentralization.

02. Sustainability

"Distance tests a horse's strength, time reveals a person's heart." In the rapidly changing crypto field, "survival" may be the most valuable trait of a project. Many times, innovation also means taking unconventional paths, facing more risks and challenges.

Historically, Ethereum has withstood the test of "time," second only to the crypto asset leader, Bitcoin. Currently, Ethereum still maintains the largest developer community and an active ecosystem, with a moat of real-world applications like DeFi, continuously innovating and building its ecosystem, firmly holding the position of "number two" in crypto assets.

EOS, on the other hand, seems not to have withstood the test of time. EOS and its ecosystem had a period of glory, but subsequently exposed some sustainability shortcomings, ultimately becoming stagnant, and whether it can "bounce back" remains uncertain.

With a shorter history than EOS, Solana has also faced the adverse effects of the collapse of its main supporter SBF and FTX, as well as frequent outages and attacks. It has endured hardships but has also revealed some stability and security issues, facing challenges to its sustainability.

Perhaps learning from EOS's relatively "failed" experience, the Ethereum and Solana communities will cautiously consider sustainability issues.

03. Community Support and Institutional Support

The development of crypto projects is always inseparable from the continuous support of the community, which is also shadowed by institutional capital. A thriving ecosystem relies on the community, while capital from institutions accelerates its progress.

At its launch, EOS actually had widespread community consensus and received substantial capital and institutional support. Its development company, Block.one, also invested significant funds and resources. However, due to pressure from U.S. SEC regulations, Block.one, as the project party, could not directly participate in the mainnet launch and project operations. After settling a lawsuit with the U.S. SEC, it chose to "lie flat" with its enormous wealth, effectively leaving the project to the community.

Due to governance model and centralization issues, EOS's community consensus gradually weakened, and the confidence of supernodes and developers was lost, leading to the outcome we see today.

In contrast to EOS, Solana has received relatively more support from Wall Street elites and capital. Its good performance seems to have quickly consolidated strong community consensus in the short term. The leadership of its project team is also exceptionally active in the community. Additionally, with the lenient state of U.S. crypto regulation after Trump's presidency, the Solana team does not face similar pressures. Instead, due to the popularity of concepts like Meme and its "Made in USA" identity, it continues to receive capital support.

Ethereum requires no further elaboration on community and institutional support. As the number two crypto asset and one of the only two U.S. stock spot ETFs, its ecosystem's maturity and liquidity are significantly ahead, and with its sustainability advantages, its long-term attractiveness is likely to only increase.

04. Conclusion

Although we have analyzed the similarities and differences between Ethereum, Solana, and EOS from several important angles, on the surface, Solana appears to resemble the more radical EOS, while Ethereum seems more stable. However, the "timing," "location," and "human factors" differ for each, perhaps making none of them truly like the others, as each will face different tests, challenges, and unique paths.

Everything awaits the test of time. Under more favorable regulatory conditions, perhaps crypto projects like Ethereum and Solana can have a bright future.