Solana supercharges the crypto economy

The crypto industry is often associated with speculative trading and memecoins, but look beyond the hype and you'll find a wave of innovative projects using blockchain technology to transform industries and create new economic opportunities. At the forefront of this movement is Solana, the fifth largest cryptocurrency that is quickly becoming the platform of choice for developers building real-world applications.

"Solana is enabling a massive shift in the way the global economy works," said Alex Scott, who leads Solana's Super Team in the Middle East. Through his work supporting developers and entrepreneurs, Scott has a front-row seat to the transformative potential of this fast, programmable blockchain.

One project that caught Scott's eye is Hivemapper, which is using Solana to create a decentralized alternative to Google Maps. The key innovation is incentivizing Uber, taxi, and delivery drivers to mount dash cams in their vehicles. As these drivers go about their daily routes, their cameras are continuously mapping the streets and collecting valuable location data.

"The business model behind it is actually attacking Google Maps," explained Scott. "Google Maps' street view is one of the most expensive APIs in the world because they've had to deploy all these vehicles with cameras on top to collect the data. What the Hivemapper team realized is that you can get a dash cam, give it to every Uber driver in the world, and have them running around the city and mapping out all of this data for a fraction of the cost."

Hivemapper then makes this crowdsourced mapping data available to businesses at a much lower price point than Google's offering. But the real innovation is how Hivemapper compensates the drivers. Through Solana's fast, low-cost transactions, drivers are paid daily micro-payments in crypto for contributing their driving data.

"He's getting paid in crypto. He had a wallet on his phone, and he's getting paid for this," said Scott, recounting a conversation he had with a taxi driver using the Hivemapper system. "The driver was earning roughly $100 a day, something like 350 dirhams. That's a meaningful amount, especially in emerging markets."

Hivemapper is just one example of how Solana is enabling new business models and economic opportunities that empower individuals. Another project that caught Scott's attention is DeCharge, which is building a decentralized electric vehicle charging network.

The problem DeCharge is tackling is "range anxiety"—the fear of running out of battery power and being unable to find a charging station. Their solution is to incentivize anyone with access to electricity to set up a charging station, whether it's a homeowner, business, or property manager.

"They've created a device that anyone can stick on the side of their apartment, plug into their electrical mains, and then get compensated for sharing their electricity with whoever comes and plugs in for that," explained Scott. Again, the transactions and payments are powered by Solana's blockchain, with drivers earning crypto for accessing the charging network.

"It's a win-win," said Scott. "Drivers get to monetize their time, they're driving around anyways. They get paid daily micro-payments, often a meaningful amount, especially in emerging markets. And then the businesses that consume the data also win, because they have very up-to-date recent data that is much cheaper than the current alternative."

These are just a couple of examples of the innovative projects being built on Solana, but Scott sees this as just the beginning of a much larger transformation. "This shift will drive a massive change in venture capital, private equity, global capital markets which will last for decades to come," he predicted.

The crypto industry may be cyclical, with periods of mania followed by corrections. But the underlying technological innovations, like those being built on Solana, are laying the foundation for a more inclusive, decentralized economy. By making it easier for anyone to earn crypto through their everyday activities, projects like Hivemapper and DeCharge are turning the promise of web3 into reality.

"For me, it's also a very exciting time, because we're seeing the promise, and sometimes broken promises are finally being executed," said Scott. "The technology is ready. It's feasible. It's economically viable."