The state of Solana: will the layer-1 protocol rise again in 2023?

About two months after the FTX collapse, the Solana network is stronger than ever, according to Austin Federa, the head of strategy and communications at the Solana Foundation. 

Federa defines the recent SOL token price crash as a short-term market reaction to the perceived connection between Solana and the defunct crypto exchange FTX. While FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was invested in many Solana-based projects, Federa pointed out he didn't have any influence on the network’s operations and fundamentals. 

“The external perception was that there was a very close relationship between the Solana network and FTX, which wasn't the case," Federa explained in a recent interview with Cointelegraph. 

According to a recent report by Electric Capital, the Solana network has been experiencing a record inflow of developers contributing to the ecosystem. 

To Federa, developers are increasingly building on the Solana network because of its main value proposition: cheap and fast transactions.

“You can build new types of products and services that aren't transaction-constrained," he pointed out.

When asked to address the problem of outages that have plagued the network over the past year, Federa mentioned a number of technical upgrades that should improve the stability of the network in the months to come. One of them is the recent introduction of priority fees, which should reduce the amount of transaction spam on the network. 

Federa also mentioned firedancer, a new validator client that is expected to go live on Solana's mainnet by the end of 2023. 

To find out more about how Solana is recovering from the FTX collapse, check out the full interview on our YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe!