What is Solana?

Solana is a blockchain platform and cryptocurrency that allows users to make transactions without an intermediary:

• Blockchain platform

Solana is a decentralized computer network that uses a blockchain to record and track transactions.

• Cryptocurrency

The individual unit of Solana is called a sol, and it's one of the most popular cryptocurrencies.

• Features

Solana is designed to be fast and scalable, with the ability to process many transactions per second at low fees. It uses a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of History (PoH) to verify when transactions occur.

• Applications

Solana can power smart contracts, decentralized finance apps, and NFTs. The Solana Program Library (SPL) allows users to create many types of tokens, including fungible tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

• Developer

Anatoly Yakovenko, a software developer, created Solana and launched it in 2020.

• Market cap

Solana's market cap was $55 billion in January 2022, but fell to around $3 billion by the end of 2022. In 2023, its market cap rose to $7 billion.

What Is Solana (SOL)?

Solana is a blockchain platform designed to host decentralized, scalable applications. Founded in 2017, it is an open-source project currently run by the Solana Foundation based in Geneva, while the blockchain was built by San Francisco-based Solana Labs.

Solana is much faster in terms of the number of transactions it can process and has significantly lower transaction fees than rival blockchains like Ethereum. The cryptocurrency that runs on the Solana blockchain—also named Solana (SOL)—soared almost 12,000% in 2021 and, at one point, had a market capitalization of over $75 billion, making it one of the largest cryptocurrencies by this measure at the time. In 2024, SOL remained one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.1

Key Takeaways

• Solana is a blockchain platform designed to host decentralized, scalable applications.

• Solana can process many more transactions per second and charges lower transaction fees than rival blockchains like Ethereum.

• Solana is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain but improves on it with a mechanism called proof-of-history (PoH), which uses hashed timestamps to verify when transactions occur.