What is Solana? How It Works & Where to Use It

How it works

Built for speed and scale.

Most blockchains slow down because nodes must constantly agree on what time it is. Solana's big idea is to prove the passage of time itself, so validators can process transactions in parallel, fast. Four ideas make that work.

Proof of History

A cryptographic “clock” timestamps events before consensus, so validators don't waste time agreeing on order. This is what makes Solana fast.

Proof of Stake

Validators stake SOL to take part. Honest validation earns rewards; misbehaviour risks the stake, security backed by value at risk.

Parallel execution

Sealevel runs thousands of non-overlapping transactions at once across many CPU cores, instead of one at a time. More cores, more throughput.

Low, flat fees

Fees are a fraction of a cent and stay stable even when the network is busy, cheap enough for everyday consumer apps.

How a transaction confirms in under a second

1

Leader & clock

A rotating “leader” validator stamps incoming transactions onto the Proof of History sequence, a verifiable record of the exact order events happened.

2

Parallel process

The runtime executes non-conflicting transactions simultaneously across CPU cores, then streams the new block to the rest of the network.

3

Vote & finalise

Validators vote on the block. After enough votes (~12.8 seconds) it's finalised, but in practice payments feel instant within the first second.

The layers under the hood

Execution

The SVM, Solana Virtual Machine

Runs programs written in Rust and C. Sealevel executes them in parallel, a different design from Ethereum's one-at-a-time EVM.

Consensus

Tower BFT over Proof of History

Validators use the PoH clock as a shared source of time, letting them reach agreement with far less back-and-forth messaging.

Networking

Turbine & Gulf Stream

Blocks are split into small packets and streamed efficiently, so the network can sustain very high transaction volume.

What you can build

SPL tokens, fungible tokens & stablecoins
cNFTs, compressed NFTs, cheap at scale
Token Extensions, built-in compliance & logic
Programs written in Rust

Low fees and high speed make Solana a natural home for consumer-scale apps, payments, gaming, DePIN and real-time trading.

Adoption & usage

A network built for volume.

Live, on-chain numbers that show how much real activity Solana handles, throughput, usage and security, not price.

View on Solscan

Network activity

Real TPS~1,050Non-vote · live

Theoretical max65,000TPS capacity

Block height (slot)312.4M~400ms per slot

Avg fee$0.0007Per transaction

Daily active addresses · last 12 months+71%

Consumer-scale growth. Daily users have climbed sharply as payments, trading and consumer apps move to Solana for its low fees.

Daily active addresses3.4M

Unique addresses transacting each day, 7-day average, among the highest of any chain.

Security · Proof of Stake

Validators1,380Active set

Total staked392M SOL

66% of supply

Staking yield~6.8%Annual · net estimate

Nakamoto coeff.20Decentralisation

Reliability

Continuous operation since the last outage (Feb 2024)

Solana's early years saw several outages under extreme load. Successive upgrades, fee markets, QUIC networking and the new Firedancer client, have hardened the network, which has run reliably through record volume since.

Feb 2024A ~5-hour halt from a bug in an older program loader. Validators coordinated a patch and restart; no funds were lost. It was the last network-wide outage to date.

Ecosystem

What people build on it.

Solana's speed and low fees attract a distinctive mix of consumer apps, high-frequency trading, payments, DePIN and culture. Here's the landscape.

DefiLlama

DeFi & trading

Fast order books and AMMs, Jupiter, Raydium, Kamino. $9.8B in total value locked.

Payments & stablecoins

Sub-cent fees make Solana popular for stablecoin transfers and merchant payments, ~$12B on-chain.

DePIN

Decentralized physical networks, wireless, maps, compute (Helium, Render), settle their usage on Solana.

NFTs & culture

Compressed NFTs make large collections affordable; Solana hosts a lively consumer and creator scene.

Top protocols by value locked

1JJupiterDEX aggregator$2.6B

2KKaminoLending$2.1B

3MMarinadeLiquid staking$1.7B

4RRaydiumAMM · DEX$1.4B

5DDriftPerps · DEX$0.9B

A single global state

Unlike Ethereum, Solana scales on one fast Layer 1 rather than many Layer 2s, every app shares the same state and liquidity. Compare with Ethereum.

Ecosystem at a glance

Total value locked$9.8BTop 3 of all chains

Stablecoin supply$12BOn-chain

In the Zypto App

Hold, swap and spend Solana assets.

Solana is fully integrated. Self-custody SOL and popular SPL tokens, swap cross-chain with no separate bridge, and spend a subset through Zypto Pay.

Available in the Zypto App · SOL + popular SPL tokens

SolanaSOL$284.17−0.6%

USD CoinUSDC$1.00+0.0%

TetherUSDT$1.00+0.0%

JupiterJUP$0.92+3.4%

JitoJTO$3.18+1.9%

dogwifhatWIF$2.41+6.2%

RenderRENDER$7.84+2.7%

PythPYTH$0.41−1.1%

Live prices link to full price pages. Any SPL token in the Zypto App is held in self-custody, your keys, your coins.

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Swap & cross-chain

CChangeNow LLetsExchange SSwapKit ZIn-app DEX

Chainlink CCIP supported Send tokens cross-chain to any CCIP network in one transaction, Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon and Base.

Zypto routes the best swap path automatically across these providers and the in-app DEX, including cross-chain moves with no separate bridge.

History & FAQ

Five years, plainly told.

Key milestones

2017

Proof of History whitepaper

Anatoly Yakovenko proposes using a cryptographic clock to scale a blockchain.

2020

Mainnet beta

Solana goes live in March 2020, prioritising raw speed and low fees.

2021

Consumer & NFT boom

Fast, cheap transactions draw a wave of NFT, gaming and DeFi activity.

2023

Recovery & resilience

Network upgrades and a growing validator set restore reliability after earlier outages.

2025

Firedancer client

A high-performance second client improves throughput and resilience through client diversity.

Key facts

LaunchedMar 2020

ConsensusPoH + PoS

LayerLayer 1 · SVM

Block time~400 ms

Native tokenSOL

Token standardSPL

Finality~12.8 sec

CCIPSupported

High throughputProof of HistoryLayer 1SVMDePIN

What is Solana in one sentence?

Solana is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain that uses a cryptographic clock (Proof of History) to process thousands of transactions per second at a fraction of a cent each.

How is Solana different from Ethereum?

Ethereum scales mainly through Layer 2 rollups and runs transactions one at a time on the EVM. Solana scales on a single fast Layer 1, executing many transactions in parallel, trading some hardware decentralisation for raw speed and low fees.

What is Proof of History?

It's a way to cryptographically prove that time has passed and events happened in a certain order, before validators reach consensus. This shared sense of time removes a major bottleneck and is the core reason Solana is so fast.

Has Solana had outages?

Yes, in its early years the network halted several times under extreme load. Since then, fee markets, networking upgrades and the new Firedancer client have greatly improved reliability, and it has run continuously through record volume.

Is Solana available in the Zypto App?

Yes. You can hold, swap and self-custody SOL and popular SPL tokens in the Zypto App, and spend a subset (SOL, USDC, USDT) through Zypto Pay. For live prices and charts, see the SOL price page.

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