Which is more like the EOS of the past, Ethereum or Solana?

Source: Vernacular Blockchain

The crypto community has always had many different project forks, from the earliest Bitcoin hard forks, LTC, Doge, and other "shanzhai", to the later emergence of well-known factions like Ethereum, EOS, and Solana. They represent the similarities and differences in ideology and direction, and while there is cooperation within their respective ecosystems, more often there are mutual attacks among communities due to differing viewpoints.

Due to Solana's good performance this round, while Ethereum's performance is relatively mediocre, people in the Solana community say ETH is like the EOS of that year, while people in the Ethereum community retaliate by saying SOL is the one that resembles EOS. When a project is considered like EOS, it means it is seen as facing a bleak outlook or entering a "bottomless abyss." So, which one is more like EOS, ETH or SOL? Today, let's analyze it from multiple perspectives...

01 Technical Route and Design Philosophy

Ethereum, Solana, and EOS from that year serve as underlying public chains. The most important goal of their technological solutions is to break the "impossible triangle" of Blockchain, becoming a secure and reliable infrastructure with high performance and high scalability.

In terms of scalability solutions, Ethereum has chosen to transition from the POW consensus mechanism to a special POS consensus mechanism and plans to enhance network throughput in the future through sharding. Currently, a shift is tentatively planned to adopt a scalability solution centered around Rollup Layer2 layered architecture, and progress has already been made.

Compared to Ethereum, Solana has more aggressively used "Proof of History" to achieve faster transaction confirmations, this consensus mechanism enables high performance and can handle a large number of transactions. Similarly, EOS back then also focused on high-performance Blockchain, achieving extremely high throughput through the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism.

In terms of technological direction, Solana and EOS are more similar, both aggressively pursuing extreme performance while sacrificing a certain degree of decentralization, exposing some issues of node centralization. However, the difference is that, despite Solana experiencing several unstable downtime incidents, it is gradually undergoing optimization and upgrades. In contrast, Ethereum's solution is considered more conservative, opting for a difficult and complex path to avoid sacrificing decentralization.

02 Sustainability

"The strength of a horse is known over a long distance, and a person's heart is seen over time." In the ever-evolving field of cryptocurrency, "survival" may be the most valuable quality of a project. Many times, innovation also means taking unconventional paths, facing more risks and challenges.

Historically, Ethereum has withstood the challenges and tests of "time," second only to the cryptocurrency leader "Bitcoin." Currently, Ethereum still maintains the largest development community and an active ecosystem, along with a moat of real-world applications like DeFi concepts. Continuous innovation and ecosystem development keep it firmly in the position of the "second" largest cryptocurrency asset.

EOS seems to have not withstood the test of time. EOS and its ecosystem experienced a period of glory, but subsequently exposed some sustainability shortcomings, eventually becoming stagnant. Whether it can "make a comeback" in the future remains uncertain.

Solana, which has a shorter history than EOS, has also experienced the adverse effects brought by the collapse of major supporters SBF and FTX, as well as frequent outages and attacks. It has certainly endured hardships, but it has also exposed some stability and security issues, and its sustainability is facing challenges.

Perhaps standing on the relatively "failed" experience of EOS, the Ethereum and Solana communities will carefully consider the issue of sustainability.

03 Community Support and Institutional Support

The development of cryptocurrency projects is always inseparable from the continuous support of the community, and of course, there are shadows of institutional capital behind it. A thriving ecosystem cannot do without the community, and the capital brought by institutions accelerates its progress.

EOS initially had a broad community consensus at its launch, and it also received significant support from capital and institutions. Its development company, Block.one, invested considerable funds and resources. However, under pressure from the U.S. SEC regulations, Block.one, as the project party, could not directly participate in the mainnet launch and project operations. After settling the lawsuit with the U.S. SEC, it chose to take a backseat with the enormous wealth it held, effectively leaving the project to the community.

Due to the impact of governance models and centralization issues, the community consensus of EOS has gradually weakened, and the confidence of supernodes and developers has been lost step by step, resulting in the outcome we see now.

Compared to EOS, Solana has received relatively more support from Wall Street elites and capital. Its good performance seems to have gathered a strong community consensus in the short term, and its project team leadership is also exceptionally active in the community. Additionally, with the relaxed state of cryptocurrency regulation in the US after Trump's rise to power, the Solana team does not face similar pressures. On the contrary, due to the popularity of concepts like Meme and the "Made in USA" identity, it continues to receive capital backing.

Ethereum needs no further explanation regarding community and institutional support. As the second-largest crypto asset and one of only two spot ETFs in the US stock market, its ecosystem maturity and liquidity are significantly ahead, coupled with the project's sustainability advantages, its long-term appeal is expected to only increase.

04 Summary

Although we have analyzed the similarities and differences between Ethereum, Solana, and EOS from several important perspectives, on the surface, Solana seems more like a radical version of EOS, while Ethereum appears to be more stable. However, the "timing," "geographical advantages," and "human factors" differ for each, and perhaps none resembles the others; each will face different tests and challenges along their unique paths.

Everything will be proven by time. Under more friendly regulatory conditions, perhaps crypto projects like Ethereum and Solana can have a bright future.