Hey!

I noticed Solana doesn't have a Bitcointalk ANN, so as an avid supporter I thought I'd create one:
(this is community led, I am not directly affiliated with Solana)

Website:
https://solana.org

Curated list of Validators:
https://www.validators.app

What Is Solana (SOL)?
Solana is a highly functional open source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions. While the idea and initial work on the project began in 2017, Solana was officially launched in March 2020 by the Solana Foundation with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralized app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.

Because of the innovative hybrid consensus model, Solana enjoys interest from small-time traders and institutional traders alike. A significant focus for the Solana Foundation is to make decentralized finance accessible on a larger scale.

Who Are the Founders of Solana?
Anatoly Yakovenko is the most important person behind Solana. His professional career started at Qualcomm, where he quickly moved up the ranks and became senior staff engineer manager in 2015. Later on, his professional path shifted, and Yakovenko entered a new position as a software engineer at Dropbox.

In 2017, Yakovenko started working on a project which would later materialize as Solana. He teamed up with his Qualcomm colleague Greg Fitzgerald, and they founded a project called Solana Labs. Attracting several more former Qualcomm colleagues in the process, the Solana protocol and SOL token were released to the public in 2020.

What Makes Solana Unique?
One of the essential innovations Solana brings to the table is the proof-of-history (PoH) consensus developed by Anatoly Yakovenko. This concept allows for greater scalability of the protocol, which in turn boosts usability.

Solana is known in the cryptocurrency space because of the incredibly short processing times the blockchain offers. Solana’s hybrid protocol allows for significantly decreased validation times for both transaction and smart contract execution. With lightning-fast processing times, Solana has attracted a lot of institutional interest as well.

The Solana protocol is intended to serve both small-time users and enterprise customers alike. One of Solana’s main promises to customers is that they will not be surprised by increased fees and taxes. The protocol is designed in such a way as to have low transaction costs while still guaranteeing scalability and fast processing.

Combined with the longstanding professional expertise creators Anatoly Yakovenko and Greg Fitzgerald bring to the project, Solana is ranked number 42 in the CoinMarketCap ranking as of February 2021.