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- With Solana’s staked value crossing the $70 billion mark, industry leaders are debating whether it could be more secure than Ethereum, which has $108 billion in staked value.
- Ethereum proponents argue that it goes beyond staked value and that factors such as decentralization, node requirements and the shared security from network effect play a crucial role.
Ethereum has been the undisputed leader in the blockchain world as a settlement layer and boasts the most Layer 2s and dApps in the industry. However, rivals are getting stronger, and none more than Solana, which now boasts 63% of Ethereum’s staked value at $70 billion. Does this make Solana more secure and a better option than Ethereum? This has been the subject of heated debate on crypto social media, with each faction presenting arguments as to why their chain is the ultimate settlement layer.
It all started with a tweet by the founder of Staking.xyz noting that Solana’s staked value is now at $70 billion while Ethereum’s stands at $110 billion (it has dipped to $108.78 billion at press time).
He posted:
Solana’s economic security is getting really close to that of Ethereum. Isn’t economic security one of the major reasons L2s choose Ethereum as its home?
This led to intense debate involving experts and key figures in both ecosystems, including Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko. While most in the Ethereum ecosystem argued against Solana for its perceived centralization, Yakovenko dismissed the arguments by referring to the age-old crypto saying: not your keys, not your coins.
He noted that the only staked value that Ethereum proponents should be confident about is that which comes from known and trusted players, like Binance and Lido, the liquid staking platform.
Unless it comes from the lido, coinbase, binance region it’s not economic security, it’s just sparkling inflation
— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) March 22, 2024
Ethereum vs. Solana—Is It Time for a New King?
While Yakovenko defended Solana, the Ethereum faithful were at hand to support their network. Nick Dodson, the CEO of Ethereum’s optimistic roll-up solution Fuel Network, listed other factors that give Ethereum an edge over Solana. They include higher shared security, which Ethereum derives from having more users building on its network.
Ethereum is also more decentralized than Solana, as it has many more validators worldwide running nodes.
So here is a bigger list, economic security is only a piece:
1. Economic Security
2. Shared Security (how many teams, companies, people rely on proper functioning)
3. Node requirements (how accessible is it to run and maintain a node), this includes how many residential…— nick.sway (@IAmNickDodson) March 21, 2024
Several others cited decentralization, with Solana being criticized for being more centralized, an allegation it has faced for years. As one noted, most of the $70 billion staked in Solana belongs to the Solana Foundation and the VCs that invested in the project early on.
As Crypto News Flash reported, decentralization has become a fundamental tenet that users consider, with projects such as Polkadot and IOTA embarking on initiatives to boost it.
Alex Gluchowski, the founder of Matter Labs, which designed the zkSync scaling solution for Ethereum, also chimed in. He stated:
Ethereum is the world’s settlement layer not because it has the largest economic security, but because it’s the LARGEST VERIFIABLE BLOCKCHAIN with smart contracts. You don’t need to trust validators. You can run a full node on a laptop, the cost is very low. If you do, you are 100% certain that you are safe and the onchain state is correct. Even if all validators are corrupt, users will fork and continue.
