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

Source: Plainspoken Blockchain

The crypto community has always had many different project branches, starting from the earliest Bitcoin hard forks, LTC, Doge, and other "shanzhai", followed by the emergence of well-known factions such as Ethereum, EOS, and Solana. They represent the similarities and differences in ideology and direction, and their respective ecosystems have more cooperation, but often attack each other due to differing viewpoints.

Due to Solana's good performance in this round, while Ethereum's performance is relatively unsatisfactory, members of the Solana community say ETH is like EOS from back in the day, while members of the Ethereum community counter that SOL is the one that resembles EOS. When a project is considered similar to EOS, it means that it is viewed as facing a bleak outlook or entering a "bottomless abyss." So, which one is more like EOS, ETH or SOL? Today, let's analyze this from multiple perspectives...

01 Technical Route and Design Philosophy

Ethereum, Solana, and the EOS of that year serve as underlying public chains, and the most important goal of their technical solutions is to break the "impossible triangle" of blockchain, becoming a secure, reliable, and high-performance, highly scalable infrastructure.

In terms of scaling 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, it is tentatively shifting towards a scaling solution centered on Rollup Layer2 architecture, and some progress has already been made.

Compared to Ethereum, Solana has more aggressively implemented "Proof of History" for faster transaction confirmations. This consensus mechanism achieves high performance and can handle a large volume of transactions. Similarly, EOS, which was also focused on high-performance blockchain at the time, achieved extremely high throughput through the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism.

In terms of technology, Solana and EOS are more similar, both sacrificing some degree of decentralization in pursuit of extreme performance, which exposes some issues of node centralization. However, the difference is that Solana is gradually optimizing and upgrading after experiencing several unstable downtimes. In contrast, Ethereum's approach is considered more conservative, choosing a difficult and complex path to avoid sacrificing decentralization.

02 Sustainability

"The strength of a horse is known on a long journey, and a person's heart is seen over time." In the ever-changing field of cryptocurrency, "survival" may be the most precious quality of a project. Often, innovation also means taking the road less traveled, facing more risks and challenges.

Historically, Ethereum has withstood the test of "time," second only to the leading crypto asset "Bitcoin." Currently, Ethereum still boasts the largest development community and an active ecosystem, with a real moat created by the implementation of concepts like DeFi. Continuous innovation and ecosystem development have solidified its position as the "second" in crypto assets.

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

Solana, which has a shorter history than EOS, has also suffered from the adverse effects brought by the collapse of its major supporter SBF and FTX, as well as frequent outages, attacks, and other incidents. It has indeed endured many trials, but it has also exposed some issues of stability and security, with sustainability facing challenges.

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

03 Community Support and Institutional Support

The development of crypto projects is always inseparable from the continuous support of the community, and of course, there is also the shadow of institutional capital behind it. The prosperity of the ecosystem relies on the community, while the capital brought by institutions accelerates its progress.

At the beginning of its launch, EOS actually had widespread community consensus and received significant capital and institutional support. Its development company, Block.one, also invested considerable funds and resources. However, due to pressure from the regulatory oversight of the U.S. SEC, Block.one, as the project party, could not directly participate in the launch of the mainnet and the operation of the project. After settling the lawsuit with the U.S. SEC, they chose to lay low with the enormous wealth they had, essentially 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 progressively diminished, ultimately leading to the result we see now.

Compared to EOS, Solana has received relatively more support from Wall Street elites and capital, and its good performance seems to have generated strong community consensus in the short term. The leadership of its project team is also exceptionally active in the community, and with the relaxed state of cryptocurrency regulation in the US after Trump took office, 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 words when it comes to community and institutional support. As the second-largest crypto asset, and the only other spot ETF 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 appears to be more like an aggressive version of EOS, while Ethereum seems to be more stable. However, the conditions of "timing," "geography," and "human factors" differ for the three, perhaps none of them are exactly like the others, and each will face different tests and challenges along their own unique paths.

Everything will be proven over time. Under friendlier regulatory conditions, perhaps cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Solana can have a bright future.