Key Points
- Solana’s founder suggested a method to reduce the high cost of operating a node.
- The high cost is mainly due to voting fees, which Solana plans to address.
Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana, has suggested a way to reduce the high cost of running a node on the network.
This comes after the Solana Foundation’s decision to withdraw financial support from some validators using MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) sandwich attacks.
The Cost of Running a Node
The cost of running a Solana validator node is approximately $65,000 per year, which is significantly higher than the cost of running an Ethereum validator.
Yakovenko attributed the cost difference to Ethereum’s investment in its consensus system, specifically the Boneh-Lynn-Shacham (BLS) signature scheme.
The BLS scheme allows for the aggregation of several independently verified messages by validators, lowering overall costs.
Solana’s Solution
While Solana’s current mechanism does not match Ethereum’s, Yakovenko stated that Solana may eventually implement a similar system.
According to Yakovenko, voting subcommittees could help lower the vote fee and reduce the vote load, resulting in lower costs.
In the past week, 80% of all Solana transactions were related to votes, highlighting the significant impact of voting fees on the overall cost of running a node.
It is still uncertain whether Solana will implement Yakovenko’s proposed solution.
Meanwhile, Solana’s price fell by 6% as crypto investors became more cautious ahead of the FOMC (Federal Open Meeting Committee) meeting.
Solana’s price dropped to $145 on June 11th, a level last seen in mid-May, due to market liquidations.