No doubt, Solana has experienced a lot of challenges in the last few months. With these challenges, many are uncertain about the future of Solana. However, even Ethereum—a top blockchain network—has had unique challenges. Nonetheless, Ethereum still stands. So, there is a good chance that Solana will recover from its current problems.
Regardless of what is happening in the Solana ecosystem, incredible teams are still building. One such fantastic project is Nitro. You may wonder why is Nitro building in a bear market and what it is all about. In this short piece, I'll introduce Nitro and its use cases.
Let's roll.
What is Nitro?
Nitro is the first Solana Virtual machine chain. It is an infrastructure within the Solana network that runs smart contract code. It enables developers to build numerous kinds of applications on the Solana network.
A virtual machine is an environment in the digital world that enables anyone to run code and power any application. Virtual machines have their own rules and run their own operating system.
Nitro was built to ensure the interoperability of the Solana network. It was designed on top of the Cosmos infrastructure as an optimistic rollup. Why Cosmos? Cosmos is a blockchain network that facilitates inter-blockchain communication (IBC) for products. So, any DApp that ships through Nitro have access to IBC assets that are interoperable and also fast.
Advantages of Nitro
One of the many advantages of Nitro is interoperability. Nitro is sitting between Cosmos and Solana. So, applications coming to Solana through Nitro are also interoperable with the Cosmos ecosystem.
We also know that Cosmos is an IBC protocol. So, with Nitro, DApps can interact and exchange with other IBC assets.
In addition to interoperability and IBC, Nitro uses the Sealevel Virtual machine to scale Solana. That is, transactions will be processed faster and at a cheaper rate. These transactions are also transparent and consistent.
How Does Nitro Work?
Nitro works like Arbitrum and Optimism. Arbitrum and Optimism are optimistic roll-ups that confirm transactions instantly.
Nitro is a layer-2 scaling Solana virtual machine scaling solution built on Sei (a layer-1 in Cosmos). Sei is IBC and ICA (interchain accounts) compatible. With this, Nitro processes transactions off-chain in its parallel layer, which is then rolled up and recorded on Cosmos later.
As an optimistic rollup, the first time the transaction is processed, it believes that users are honest and transparent. However, the second time, it is processed on the main chain, i.e ., Sei, which uses fraud proofs to detect and challenge transactions. If manipulation is detected, the transaction will be invalidated.
Use Cases of Nitro
No doubt, Nitro has a lot to offer Solana. Even though Solana is considerably fast and cheap, there is still room for growth. It can't kill Ethereum with mediocre performance. So, Nitro is helping teams build more scalable projects on Solana with the help of its technology. So, what can teams make with Nitro?
Let's look at some primary use cases of Nitro:
1. High-Level Gaming
Solana is considerably fast. But Nitro makes it faster. Game developers can jump on the Nitro chain to build super-fast games with speedy transaction confirmation.
2. Decentralized Exchanges
With the Nitro chain, DEX can offer IBC assets on the Cosmos and Solana ecosystems. DEX can leverage Solana Virtual Machine for IBC assets' order book, AMM, Stableswaps, etc.
3. NFT Financial offerings
Like a DEX, Solana can now offer some DeFi features on NFTs. They can not just be renowned for basic NFT trading but also for lending, derivatives, and complex trading.
These are only a few of the use cases of the Nitro chain. You can stay updated with the chain by keeping your eyes on their social community.
Website: https://nitro.technology
Documentation:
Glossary
DApps: Decentralized applications
IBC (Interblockchain communication): Interblockchain communication facilitates the exchange of information and assets between different decentralized networks.
ICA (Interchain Accounts): Interchain accounts allow users to securely hold and transfer assets and information between different blockchain networks.
Optimistic rollups: a layer 2 scaling solution for blockchain networks that increase transaction throughput and reduce costs by processing transactions off-chain and recording them on the main chain later.
Cosmos: a decentralized network of independent, scalable, and interoperable blockchains that enables the creation of custom blockchain applications and facilitates the exchange of data and assets between different blockchains.
Solana: a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform designed to support fast, scalable, and secure transactions using a novel consensus algorithm called Proof of History (PoH).