Solana founder rules out higher transaction costs under new fee structure

The new pay-priority model will not increase transaction fees on the Solana network. This was stated by Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of the project.

ELI5 solana fees:
Once all the features rollout, there will be fees. Does that mean the network will be expensive? No! 🧵https://t.co/vWfJxYXjiK

— SMS T◎Ly, 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) June 16, 2022

On the night of May 1, 2022, the Solana blockchain experienced an outage — a huge surge in incoming transactions and heavy traffic led to the network’s halt. The team then said that the incident was caused by bot activity, which were competing to mint NFTs released using the Candy Machine tool. 

In a subsequent report, the project’s developers said they would implement a payment-priority mechanism in the new software version. They argued the measure would improve the network’s resilience.

«A new instruction is being introduced offering users the ability to set an arbitrary additional fee that is charged when a transaction is executed and included in a block», the publication said.

The developers pointed out that the proposed mechanism differs from that used in Ethereum. In their words, the priority payment will affect only a “specific state,” not the entire block. 

Yakovenko, overall, repeated this thesis. As an analogy, he cited a “switch” that everyone wants to flip at the same time. The validator offering the highest gas fee will gain the ability to move their transaction to the front of the queue. 

What matters is that there are at least 2 people that want to flip that switch, and the highest price they are willing to pay for it. A specific NFT auction, or specific serum market, or orca AMM pool is one switch. The first trader to flip it will flip it first.

— SMS T◎Ly, 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) June 16, 2022

Unlike Ethereum, the pay-priority feature in Solana will operate within a decentralized application, rather than across the entire network. As a result, the fee for using a specific dapp may rise, but on the scale of the blockchain overall it should remain the same.

«If all transactions for trading on a single market Orca fit within 400 ms, no one will need to increase the fee to include in a block. All other markets and applications should not be affected», — wrote the project’s founder.

Metaplex Studios strategic adviser Pedro Miranda explained the concept as follows:

Local Fee Markets > Global Fee Markets

cc: @yaamehn https://t.co/Xf3ata6Ezm pic.twitter.com/wwyx3scTLi

— PEDR◎ 🇧🇷 (@voteforpedrito) June 16, 2022

In June 2022, Solana produced no new blocks for over four hours due to a failure to process long-running non-targeted transactions, which led to a breach of consensus.

Earlier in May, developers reported desynchronization of the blockchain’s internal clocks with real time.

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