Solana Logo and Name: What’s the Original Name of the Solana Blockchain?

The Solana logo is quickly becoming one of the most easily recognizable cryptocurrency logos in the blockchain world. Like Bitcoin’s (BTC) orange B, Dogecoin’s coveted pooch, or Cardano’s iconic circle pattern , the SOL coin logo has become a rallying point for the Solana faithful.

But there’s more to Solana ’s branding than meets the eye. In fact, if Anatoly Yakovenko and his fellow co-founders had their way, the Solana ecosystem would have a completely different name.

What inspired the sleek and simple logo, and why couldn’t Solana’s founders keep the name they’d originally chosen?

Why Is Solana Called Solana?

Anatoly Yakovenko wrote the Solana network’s original whitepaper. Seeking to resolve the scalability issues that plagued legacy blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) , Yakovenko theorized a brand new consensus mechanism called Proof-of-History.

Source: Solana

To turn his dream into reality, Yakovenko teamed up with Qualcomm colleagues who shared his vision. Alongside Stephen Akridge and Greg Fitzgerald, the three developers juggled their time between actively coding their revolutionary protocol and enjoying leisurely, if somewhat athletic, activities.

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One of the founding team’s favorite activities during Solana’s inception was surfing the thunderous waves off southern California’s dreamy coastline. Just north of San Diego, Yakovenko and his peers found inspiration in the churning Pacific waters of Solana Beach.

Solana Beach and its salty cauldron were the perfect backdrop to the early development stages of the Solana blockchain. After the team’s original name for the network fell through, it only seemed right to pay homage to the location and name the protocol Solana.

What are Lamports?

Lamports are the smallest division of a single SOL token. In the same way that BTC can be divided into individual SATS, or Satoshis, SOL can be divided into individual lamports.

One Lamport is valued at precisely 0.000000001 SOL and was named after Leslie Lamport, a celebrated American computer scientist and mathematician who was one of Solana’s biggest technical influences.

What Was Solana Originally Called, and Why Did It Change?

While it seems strange to imagine the network being called anything other than Solana now, the founders originally had another name in mind for their technical masterpiece.

From the beginning, Yakovenko and the founding team envisioned using their novel Proof-of-History consensus mechanism to weave all the world’s blockchain transactions into one silky smooth network. To that end, the protocol was originally named Loom after the device popularly used to weave intricate tapestries.

However, the Solana co-founders weren’t the only team in the crypto space with this vision. Around the same time they were prototyping the Solana blockchain and PoH consensus mechanism, an Ethereum-based project was launched using the Loom name.

To avoid confusion and separate themselves from the project, the founders opted instead to name their network after Solana Beach, the small town where they’d surfed and relaxed while designing what would become crypto’s most performant blockchain.

What Is the Solana Logo?

Sleek and simple, the Solana logo represents what the network offers its users: A fast and beginner-friendly platform for interacting with blockchain technology like DeFi and NFTs.

The logo resembles a stylized ‘S’ of three separate lines bearing a color gradient between a futuristic green and purple coloring. According to Solana, the angular and uniform graphic design, fonts, and logomark are inspired by 1980’s tech aesthetics .

Stacking the three parallelograms, the aims to convey a sense of speed and gives a celebratory nod to the concept of building meaningful platforms. Both Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation use this logo.

The Solana SOL logo, letter logo, and other branding materials are available on the Solana Branding site in various formats, like SVG and PNG, along with usage guidelines.

Will Solana’s Logo or Name Change?

While the protocol’s name has previously been changed in the past, Solana has now established itself as one of the biggest crypto projects in the space. It is very unlikely that Solana will be renamed soon.

On the other hand, cryptocurrency logo changes are known to happen from time to time. Even large-scale projects like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and PolkaDot (DOT) have rebranded their image.

That being said, no official plans exist to update or rebrand the Solana logo.

On the Flipside

• While the color scheme of the Solana logo was chosen to look sleek and futuristic, some might find the fluorescent color gradient unappealing.

Why This Matters

The Solana logo is the face of the blockchain and the ecosystem that lives and thrives within the network. It is a unifying banner for projects building on the chain and is often used to foster a sense of community among users and supporters.

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