By Jasir Jawaid, Coin Bureau
Compiled by: Glendon, Techub News
From DeFi transactions to payments and gaming, real-world use has exposed the gap between the vision of blockchain protocols and their actual capabilities. Blockchains that once relied on high throughput as their core advantage often become overwhelmed under the pressure of peak demand, resulting in longer transaction confirmation times, soaring fees, and even network paralysis.
For developers building consumer-oriented applications, this friction is likely to become a fatal weakness that affects the user transaction experience and leads to user churn. For this reason, the current competition between Layer1 has shifted from pure innovation to proven execution. In this process, the reliability of the blockchain, network uptime, and support for developers, like scalability, have become important indicators of its competitiveness.
In this context, Solana stands out as a highly competitive blockchain project, not only because of its transaction speed, but also because it solves some of the major challenges in the cryptocurrency field.
As early as 2020, Coin Bureau conducted its first review of Solana. Since then, the network has undergone significant evolution both technically and culturally. With the completion of a series of major technical upgrades, the continuous expansion of the ecosystem, and the continued expansion of application scenarios, Solana is no longer limited to being just a high-speed alternative to Ethereum. Based on these changes, it is necessary for us to re-examine and evaluate Solana.
Key Takeaways
Solana is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain that enables fast, low-cost, and scalable transactions through innovative technologies such as Proof of History and Tower BFT.
Its ecosystem supports DeFi, NFT, games, payments, and Meme coins, and improves performance and user experience through tools such as Blinks, Firedancer, and Sealevel;
Solana’s native token SOL supports staking, trading, governance, and validator incentives, and inflation will gradually weaken over time;
Upgrades such as Firedancer and Alpenglow are designed to improve stability, decentralization, and sub-second determinism for real-time applications;
Currently the blockchain of choice for builders and users, Solana continues to gain traction, delivering performance, ease of use, and developer-friendly tooling that goes beyond pure speed.
Solana
Solana is a high-performance, open source Layer 1 blockchain built for high-speed, scalable and low-cost transactions. It was created to break through the limitations of early blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and provide a bottleneck-free, low-gas fee environment for DApps, smart contracts and crypto assets.
Proof of History underlies Solana’s architecture, enabling it to timestamp and order transactions at extremely high speeds, which gives Solana its signature throughput. The network is theoretically capable of processing up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), but this is difficult to achieve consistently in actual day-to-day operations—this is a theoretical maximum calculated under ideal conditions in controlled testing. In actual use, the network typically reaches thousands of TPS. As of writing, Solana reports a processing speed of 3,700 TPS.
Compared to Ethereum’s processing speed of about 15 TPS and Bitcoin’s 7 TPS, it’s not hard to understand why Solana has attracted so much attention.
Unlike other blockchains that rely on multi-layered architectures or external expansion solutions, Solana adopts a monolithic architecture: all operations are completed on a single chain. By relying on validators and optimized runtime efficiency, the network avoids fragmentation and provides faster finality. This design makes it the first choice for DeFi, NFT, and GameFi developers. At the same time, projects such as Jupiter, Magic Eden, and Metaplex in the Solana ecosystem are constantly breaking the limits of Web3.
As the native token of the network, SOL plays a key role in the ecosystem: it is used to pay transaction fees, participate in validator staking, and ensure network security. As Solana usage grows, SOL has also become a core asset of cross-chain infrastructure, and cross-chain bridges such as Wormhole and Circle's CCTP make it easier to transfer value between ecosystems.
Solana Development History
Solana Creation Timeline
November 2017: Anatoly Yakovenko publishes the Proof of History white paper, proposing a new method for cryptographically timestamping blockchain events.
Early 2018: Released first internal testnet with Greg Fitzgerald, which can process 10,000 transactions in half a second.
Mid-2018: The project is renamed from "Loom" to "Solana," inspired by Solana Beach, California.
2019: Yakovenko, Gokal, Fitzgerald, and Akridge (all from Qualcomm) officially founded Solana Labs.
2020: Solana mainnet beta goes live, bringing high-throughput capabilities to the public blockchain space.
2021: Solana experienced explosive growth, benefiting from Ethereum’s high gas fees and early DApps supported by FTX (such as Serum).
2022: FTX collapsed, SOL plummeted, key DApps collapsed, and the network entered a crisis period.
2023–2025: Solana is rebuilt with a focus on decentralization, and will launch products such as Firedancer, Blinks, and Actions to upgrade the user experience.
At that time, Anatoly Yakovenko, with his research in the field of distributed systems and compression algorithms, published a white paper introducing a new concept he called "Proof of History" (PoH). Unlike traditional consensus mechanisms, PoH provides a new cryptographic way to timestamp events and create a verifiable sequence of transactions, which significantly improves execution speed (which will be elaborated in subsequent chapters). We will explain this in detail in the next section.
Anatoly initially built a prototype in C, and completely rewrote it after realizing that Rust provided better security and performance. At the time, Rust was still new in the cryptocurrency field, and Solana's adoption attracted a large number of developers eager to use modern high-performance languages. In order to turn this vision into reality, Anatoly worked with former Qualcomm colleague Greg Fitzgerald to launch the project's first testnet in early 2018, setting an amazing record of processing 10,000 transactions in 0.5 seconds, which also foreshadowed Solana's potential.
The project was originally named "Loom", but was renamed because it shared the same name as the existing Ethereum project Loom Network. The team got inspiration from the California beaches that they often visited during their Qualcomm days and renamed the blockchain "Solana". After the name was established and the technology was verified, Anatoly invited Raj Gokal and another Qualcomm alumnus Stephen Akridge to join the founding team.
By 2021, Solana had attracted the attention of developers and users who were struggling with Ethereum’s sky-high gas fees. But its early breakthroughs were largely attributed to Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his FTX/Alameda ecosystem. FTX was the main driver of Solana’s adoption through its high-performance on-chain order book Serum and associated projects such as Bonfida, Oxygen, and Maps. While some projects are fading, the Solana network is gaining momentum.
However, Solana’s rapid rise was not without its setbacks. Frequent network outages and centralization concerns plagued the protocol’s reputation. Then, the FTX crash in late 2022 dealt it a heavy blow: SOL prices plummeted, DApps that relied on Serum collapsed, and the network’s reputation hit rock bottom. At the time, many people concluded that “Solana is dead.”
But Solana did not sink, and the subsequent reconstruction phase proved the resilience of its ecosystem - without relying on FTX's influence.
What makes Solana unique
Why can Solana stand out in the blockchain field where internal competition is serious?
Solana’s Secret to Speed: Proven by History
One of the thorniest issues in distributed systems is time. When there is no centralized clock, how can you prove the order of events without relying on nodes to repeatedly verify each other? Most blockchains rely on loosely synchronized timestamps or consensus between nodes, which can be slow. Solana takes a different approach: its Proof of History creates a verifiable timeline of events.
At its core, PoH is a cryptographic clock. It allows the Solana network to record events in a specific, verifiable order without requiring all nodes to coordinate in real time. Instead of asking “When did this transaction happen?”, validators can simply check the history, which proves when each transaction occurred relative to other transactions, greatly reducing the time and computational overhead required to reach consensus.
PoH is driven by a Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) — a cryptographic process that requires a known real time to be calculated and cannot be achieved through shortcuts. In Solana, this function involves continuously running a secure hash function (SHA256), with each output becoming the input for the next round. This continuous hashing process acts like a digital metronome, with each new output marking the network time.
The current state and counters of the process are recorded and published periodically. Since each output depends on the previous output, and the hash function has preimage and collision resistance, the timeline cannot be forged, and it is impossible to jump, rewrite history, or predict future outputs. Just as taking a photo of the newspaper of the day can prove when the photo was taken, inserting data into the PoH sequence can also prove its existence time.
When Solana generates a block, the designated leader node packages the transactions, timestamps them using PoH, and shares the results with other nodes on the network. Other validators can then independently and quickly verify the authenticity and order of the blocks without cross-checking, which results in faster block times, lower latency, and near-instant finality.
Another advantage of this system is that it can be verified in parallel. While the generation of the PoH sequence needs to be executed continuously on a single core, the verification process can be distributed across multiple cores or even GPUs. This makes the verification process scalable and secure even under high load.
Rust Programming Language
Unlike Ethereum, which uses languages like Solidity and Vyper, Solana smart contracts (called “programs”) are primarily written in Rust.
Rust is a low-level programming language designed for performance and safety. It was originally developed by Mozilla to solve common problems in languages like C and C++ (especially memory management and concurrency). The advantage of Rust is that it can reach the speed of C/C++ while minimizing errors such as memory leaks and data races.
One of Rust's biggest advantages is that it allows Solana to process transactions in parallel, helping the network scale without sacrificing security. Rust's large developer community also lowers the threshold for non-Web3 engineers to build on Solana without having to learn a whole new technology stack.
Thanks to its versatility, Rust’s reach now extends beyond Solana, powering operating systems, browser engines, and even newer blockchains like Aptos and Sui through Rust-based languages like Move.
Solana Technical Analysis
In addition to the innovative PoH, Solana has other technical highlights.
Tower BFT (Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance)
Solana does not use a traditional consensus model, but runs on Tower BFT, a custom system built on Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT). The key difference is that Solana uses PoH to keep the entire network in sync, which eliminates the need for validators to constantly communicate before reaching consensus, saving time and reducing network overhead.
Here’s how it works: When a validator votes on a block, they commit to maintaining that vote for a certain number of hash cycles. Each time they vote again on the same chain, the timeout doubles, making it harder to undo previous votes. Over time, votes accumulate “weight,” making rollbacks nearly impossible. It’s a clever system that rewards consistency (one vote might be reversible in seconds, another might take years) and helps the network reach finality quickly.
Because PoH provides a tamper-proof timeline, validators do not need to ask each other about the timing of events. They can verify everything by simply looking at the ledger. If a fork occurs (which it does), validators will naturally choose the chain with the longest cumulative timeout, which is also the chain they are most likely to receive rewards.
Turbine
How does Solana quickly confirm and propagate transactions across a global network? The answer lies in its custom block propagation protocol, Turbine. Unlike traditional blockchain "flooding" propagation, where nodes broadcast new blocks to all reachable peers, Turbine takes a more structured approach. The "flooding" approach may work for smaller networks, but as it scales, it becomes inefficient and bandwidth-intensive.
Turbine solves this problem by splitting each block into small pieces called "shards", which are passed around the network using a hierarchical tree structure. Instead of sending the entire block to each validator, the leader node sends different fragments to a few selected peer nodes, which then forward them to other peer nodes, and so on. This reduces the load on a single node and greatly speeds up the propagation of block data.
Gulf Stream
In most blockchains, transactions first go to the "memory pool," which is essentially a waiting area where they wait until they are selected and included in a block. Validators often prioritize high-fee transactions, which can cause congestion and long delays during peak hours. It's a system that works, but it's not ideally efficient.
Solana skips the memory pool through the Gulf Stream protocol. Transactions do not need to wait in the pool, but are immediately forwarded to the current block producer, or even the next few scheduled leaders, because with historical proof, Solana knows exactly who the next node is. This foresight allows validators who are about to execute transactions to "pre-cache" transactions, thereby reducing latency and improving efficiency.
Sealevel
Most blockchains process smart contract transactions sequentially, like a single lane traffic jam. Sealevel, as a parallel execution engine, allows multiple smart contracts that do not involve the same data to run simultaneously, similar to a multi-lane highway. In simple terms, before execution, Sealevel analyzes the needs of each contract and whether their operations will conflict. If there is no overlap, they are processed in parallel. This design greatly increases throughput without compromising security.
Pipelining
Inspired by modern CPU task processing, Solana breaks down the transaction verification process into multiple stages through pipeline technology, processing transactions at different stages in parallel in the transaction processing unit (TPU). When one part of the TPU is acquiring a transaction, other parts are verifying signatures or executing contract instructions, thus forming an efficient pipeline operation.
Cloudbreak
Storing all account data in a single, ever-growing database may be feasible at a small scale, but as the blockchain grows in size, this will become a serious bottleneck. If the network is to support thousands of applications and global usage, it cannot rely on a one-size-fits-all storage model. To this end, Solana uses the horizontally scalable Cloudbreak storage system, which splits data into multiple dedicated storage units (like classified filing cabinets instead of overloaded drawers).
What makes Cloudbreak so efficient is the way it handles reads and writes. For quick queries (such as checking token balances), requests are distributed across multiple storage units, resulting in near-instant responses. When updates are needed (such as transferring tokens), only the specific accounts involved are temporarily locked, while the rest of the system remains fully accessible. This effectively avoids traffic congestion even during peak usage.
Archivers
As we all know, Solana can process thousands of transactions per second, which will inevitably generate a large amount of historical data. If the validator has to bear the entire burden and store all transactions and blocks, it will soon be overwhelmed. At this time, the archiver comes in handy. They are nodes dedicated to storing Solana's historical ledger data. They can be regarded as administrators of the network: they do not verify transactions or generate new blocks, but they ensure that the history of the entire blockchain remains safe, accessible and complete.
SOL Token
SOL is the native token of the Solana blockchain, which can be thought of as the fuel, margin, and economic glue of the Solana ecosystem. Whether it is buying NFTs, exchanging tokens, or running a verification node, SOL is the driving force behind it.
SOL Token Economic Model
SOL has several key responsibilities in network operation, including:
Pay transaction fees (similar to Ethereum’s Gas, but at a lower cost);
Stake with validators to maintain network security and earn rewards;
Interact with smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps);
Participate in governance voting (subject to future network upgrades).
SOL Token Economics :
Total supply of SOL: approximately 601.5 million
Circulation: Approximately 520.3 million (86.5%)
Uncirculated: Approximately 81.2 million (13.5%)
The circulating supply includes : SOL circulating in exchanges and wallets, and SOL in pledge (which can be unpledged at any time and is therefore considered circulating).
Non-circulating supply includes : locked staking accounts (from investments or grants, subject to vesting periods); staking held by the Foundation, which is not locked but is used for delegation programs to help decentralize the network.
Just to clarify, locked ≠ staked. Most staked SOL is not locked. Locked SOL simply means it cannot be withdrawn or transferred before a certain date.
Inflation Mechanism: Where Does the New SOL Come From?
The current inflation rate of SOL is 4.514%, the initial inflation rate is 8%, and it decreases by 15% each year (adjusted every 180 cycles).
Solana's inflation rate will gradually decrease over time, which means that fewer new SOL tokens will be minted each year, which helps maintain the long-term sustainability of the system. Stakers are rewarded through inflation, so the value of non-staked tokens will be diluted over time. In addition, half of each transaction fee is destroyed and the other half goes to the validator. Solana's ultimate plan is to replace inflation with fee income as the main source of compensation for validators.
Solana Application Scenarios
Solana, as an infrastructure layer, supports a wide range of practical applications from payments, NFTs to institutional-level solutions and games. Its uniqueness lies in actual adoption rather than conceptual speculation. Currently, the ecosystem supports billions of DeFi assets, tens of thousands of daily active users, and has attracted cooperation from companies such as Google Cloud, Mastercard, and Shopify.
Key Areas of Driving
DeFi: Platforms such as Jupiter, Orca, and Kamino are leading the DeFi renaissance, combining high throughput with new features such as MEV optimization and automated vault strategies;
NFT and Digital Culture: Projects like Magic Eden solidify Solana’s leadership in NFT infrastructure;
Enterprise integration: Shopify merchants connected to the Solana Pay plugin, Mastercard built crypto credentials on Solana, and Asics and Boba Guys launched tokenized products;
Games: Hundreds of games such as Star Atlas and Aurory are driving the development of blockchain games through Solana Games Kit and Magicblock native engine;
DApps and Tools: Developer activity continues to grow with Rust, Anchor, and a rich SDK ecosystem, with total locked value (TVL) exceeding $9 billion.
Firedancer: Solana’s secondary engine
Firedancer is a brand new validator client built by Jump Crypto for the Solana blockchain. Unlike Solana’s current setup, which relies primarily on a single client (Agave), Firedancer is a completely independent system built from scratch. This is important because relying on just one client means that if one client fails, the entire network could be paralyzed. Firedancer solves this problem by providing Solana with multiple engines.
Key Takeaways:
Firedancer provides Solana with a second, fully independent validator client to reduce dependency on Agave and prevent single points of failure;
It is designed for extremely fast speeds, with lab benchmark results exceeding 1 million transactions per second;
Its modular “sharding” architecture allows each component to run independently to achieve higher fault tolerance;
Firedancer features a custom network stack designed to reduce latency and increase data processing efficiency;
It enhances decentralization by adding client diversity to the validator ecosystem;
Written in C/C++ for optimal performance and control of system-level operations;
A hybrid version called Frankendancer is already live, with a full mainnet launch expected later in 2025.
Alpenglow: A revolution in consensus mechanisms
Solana developers recently announced a major proposal that is not just a "tinkering". Alpenglow is a brand new consensus system that may replace Solana's current core components: Proof of History (PoH) and Tower BFT. According to the developers, this is not only an upgrade, but also a complete rethinking of how Solana finalizes transactions and transmits data in the network.
Proof of History (PoH) and Tower BFT systems greatly improve Solana's efficiency, but they become complex and sometimes slow when the network is under great pressure. In response, Alpenglow proposed two major alternatives.
Votor : A new block finalization system that can reach consensus in 100-150 milliseconds.
If 80% of validators are online, one round of voting is enough;
If only 60% of validators respond, it will automatically switch to two rounds of voting.
Rotor : A new data relay system that improves Solana’s Turbine protocol.
Fewer “hops” between nodes;
Smarter repeater selection;
Better bandwidth allocation for faster data transfer.
Together, these systems are designed to streamline the consensus process, reduce coordination delays, and improve responsiveness across the network.
Why is this important? This is more than just a backend optimization. If Alpenglow is successful, it will change the types of applications that Solana can support, especially for real-time, high-frequency applications. What this may mean in practice is:
Sub-second finality: transactions are confirmed in the blink of an eye;
Real-time use cases: Gaming, finance, and social DApps feel truly real-time;
Better user experience: Faster confirmation means less waiting and fewer retries;
SOL demand increases: more applications → more users → more transactions.
Currently, Alpenglow does not have a firm release date, but its whitepaper has been published and community discussions have begun. If it works as planned, Solana could become the first major Layer 1 blockchain to consistently provide provable sub-second finality.
Solana Ecosystem Panorama
Jupiter
Jupiter started out as a DEX aggregator to help users get the best contract deals, but now it has become almost the largest portal to Solana DeFi, with the platform having everything from perpetual contracts and token issuance to portfolio trackers and its own token terminal.
Jupiter’s growth has been fueled by acquisitions, with the protocol having acquired platforms such as SonarWatch, Coinhall, Solana.FM, MoonShot, and most recently, NFT issuance app DRiP Haus. According to the latest data from DeFiLlama, after the Memecoin craze cooled, Jupiter quietly took the top spot in Solana network fee generation, generating $1.7 million in revenue per day.
Meteora
Meteora is a Solana liquidity management platform owned by the Jupiter team, runs on a system called DLMM (Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker), and has become the preferred venue for Meme tokens such as MELANIA, ME, and PENGU.
Raydium
Raydium, the leading DEX on Solana, is launching a token launch platform LaunchLab to compete head-on with Pump.fun.
Pump.fun
Pump.fun went live in early 2024 and immediately set the tone for Solana's next era: chaos and creativity. It allows anyone to create tokens in seconds. Pump.fun has generated over $500 million in revenue and is growing its micro-ecosystem. The platform recently launched its native DEX PumpSwap, which has lower fees and supports creator revenue sharing. All tokens from Pump.fun will now default to PumpSwap instead of Raydium.
Kamino
After perfecting its vault system and launching Lend V2, Kamino has become the largest lending protocol on Solana, with a TVL of over $2.5 billion. Kamino’s “Vault Layer” automates and optimizes cross-pool lending, and its “Scam Wick Protection” helps users avoid sudden false price spikes during liquidation, making lending safer.
Solayer
Solayer is the Solana version of EigenLayer. It started as a re-staking project but quickly expanded its business scope. Currently, it has its own USD stablecoin (sUSD), a growing DeFi center, and a chain under development, Solayer InfiniSVM, which is a hardware-accelerated SVM Layer1.
Solana Meme Coin
With strong technical strength and community vitality, Solana has quickly become the main platform for the issuance and trading of Meme coins. Although Meme coins are often regarded as speculative or fun products, their success on Solana is closely related to the unique features of the network.
Solana's infrastructure is designed for speed and scale. Transaction confirmation takes only 400 milliseconds, enabling near-instant execution even during peak trading hours. Coupled with extremely low transaction fees, averaging only 0.0006 SOL per transaction, this makes large-scale network interactions affordable for developers and everyday users.
Several core features of Solana make it particularly suitable for meme coin activities:
High throughput ensures the network remains responsive even during large token issuances;
Developers can build programs that are fully on-chain, without the need for centralized servers or intermediaries;
Near-zero transaction fees lower the barrier to entry for creators and participants.
While the technical foundation is critical, Solana’s Memecoin ecosystem is also driven by its highly active community. From coordinated social activity on Twitter and Telegram to instant meme propagation in NFT circles, Solana’s users play an active role in discovering, promoting, and trading new tokens.
This “grassroots energy” makes Solana an ideal testing ground for viral token propagation. Compared to other blockchains, where high fees or slow confirmation times can hinder experimentation, Solana is able to support Memecoin projects to quickly launch and scale with minimal overhead.
Summarize
Today, Solana has completed the transformation from high-speed experimentation to robust infrastructure. With a series of innovations such as the Proof of History (PoH) mechanism, the Firedancer validator client, and the Blinks state synchronization protocol, Solana is breaking through the technical bottlenecks of other Layer 1s and providing tools that are familiar and easy to use for Web2 users and urgently needed by Web3 builders.
As the network continues to evolve and improve through upgrades like Alpenglow and Firedancer, the core issue is no longer "Can Solana's performance meet the needs?", but how developers will use its speed, efficiency, and flexibility to build better applications.
