In the 2026 a16z report, Solana was described as “the center of on-chain activity”: the network generated about $3 billion in annual revenue and posted a 78% increase in developer interest over two years. By combining Proof of History and Proof of Stake, Solana can keep both latency and fees low, while new mobile, cross-chain, and validator upgrades expand reach and improve resilience.
This article explains how these network mechanisms make it possible to run truly real-time, scalable on-chain applications.
Technology foundations and network upgrades
Proof of History and the speed advantage
From a technology standpoint, Solana is distinctive because it combines the Proof of History (PoH) mechanism with a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus layer. PoH acts as a cryptographic clock that orders events before they are processed — which means nodes do not have to spend time coordinating the transaction order.
This design lets the network process thousands of transactions per second with near-instant confirmation. Under ideal conditions, Solana is engineered to support up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS). In practice, “user” TPS — meaning asset transfers, smart-contract calls, DeFi operations — stays around 1,000 TPS.
It is important to make the distinction: higher TPS numbers on Solana also include lightweight validator “vote” transactions that do not represent real end-user activity. Even so, these speeds make Solana attractive for trading, payments, gaming, and dApps that need both speed and predictable fees. By comparison, early blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum process fewer than 30 TPS and charge higher transaction costs.
Capacity growth and faster finality
Developers keep increasing Solana’s capacity so the network can handle growing load. In July 2026 the block compute limit was raised by 20% — from 50 to 60 million compute units per block. This helped smooth out local congestion and let the chain accept more user transactions.
The next major upgrade is Alpenglow, scheduled for early 2026. It is expected to introduce a new consensus protocol that will cut finality roughly in half — to about 100–150 ms, effectively “network-level” seconds. The combination of a wider block and faster finality makes Solana suitable for high-frequency trading, micropayments, and instant remittances.
Resilience and decentralization
Despite the high throughput, Solana remains energy-efficient. According to the network’s own metrics, a single transaction consumes about 0.0086 Wh and produces roughly 0.00269 g of CO₂e — orders of magnitude lower than Proof-of-Work chains.
There are more than 900 validators operating in data centers around the world, which supports decentralization and network liveness. For the 60 days leading up to 25 October 2026, the network maintained 100% uptime — even during a major AWS outage.
DeFi: advanced liquidity and trading tools
In the Solana ecosystem, DeFi operations are built on smart contracts, enabling users to trade, lend, borrow, stake, and earn yield without banks or intermediaries.
Core elements include:
- decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and liquidity pools where users deposit assets and earn fees on swaps;
- lending and borrowing protocols, where users can post crypto as collateral to borrow or, conversely, earn interest by providing liquidity;
- staking and yield-farming, which become economical on Solana thanks to low fees and high TPS.
According to market trackers, DeFi on Solana has already exceeded $10 billion in TVL. The Electric Capital report noted that in 2024 Solana accounted for about 81% of all DEX transactions — in other words, most on-chain trading flowed through Solana.
Because the chain is fast and cheap, users do not have to “batch” transactions or worry about gas spikes — that makes Solana a convenient settlement layer for scalable financial applications.
Jupiter Ultra v3 and DeFi dominance
Jupiter, one of the main DEX aggregators in the Solana ecosystem, launched its Ultra v3 engine on 23 October 2026. It introduced smarter route selection, predictive execution, and even gasless options. In some scenarios this cut effective fees by up to 10x and improved protection against sandwich attacks.
In addition, Jupiter’s Iris router now scans several liquidity planes at once — JupiterZ, DFlow, Hashflow, OKX and others — which brings execution quality close to that of centralized exchanges.
Alongside Jupiter, Solana also hosts DEXs like Orca and Raydium, lending platforms such as Solend and MarginFi, and derivatives protocols including Mango and Drift — together they form a dense DeFi cluster on Solana.
Stablecoin liquidity and low fees
Stablecoins have turned Solana into a very convenient “liquid” layer. According to SolanaFloor, by October 2026 the stablecoin supply on Solana hit a new record, surpassing $17 billion.
In early 2026 the network processed more than 200 million stablecoin transactions per month, and peer-to-peer volume reached $59.2 billion in January — a strong figure for a public L1.
Circle’s USDC dominates on Solana with about 72.3% of supply, or $12.6 billion. Tether’s USDt is second with about 15.7%, or $2.7 billion. In May 2025, PayPal launched its PYUSD on Solana, using token extensions and programmability.
On top of that, Jupiter and Ethena announced JupUSD — a Solana-native stablecoin that is expected to absorb around $750 million from Jupiter’s existing liquidity. All of this cements Solana’s status as a low-cost DeFi hub.
RWA and institutional integrations
Institutions can issue tokenized versions of traditional assets on Solana — from U.S. Treasury-backed funds to equity tokens — using token extensions and permissioned environments. In 2026, Solana’s RWA market kept expanding: the volume of tokenized assets exceeded $418 million, roughly 140% more than a year earlier.
This is backed by real-world names. Together with R3 (which works with HSBC, Bank of America and others), Solana lets banks use the chain for issuance and settlement. High throughput, low fees, and a mature toolset make Solana a convenient layer for compliance-sensitive markets.
Notable event: in February 2026, Franklin Templeton extended its Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) to Solana — the fund invests in U.S. Treasuries and issues tokenized shares.
Notable event: in September 2026, Galaxy Digital became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its Class A shares on Solana. Through the Opening Bell platform by Superstate, investors gained access to fractionalized, on-chain Galaxy shares.
Together, these steps show that Solana is becoming a bridge between traditional capital markets and a public blockchain.
Cross-chain connectivity and ecosystem links
Solana connects to other networks through bridges and messaging protocols. In June 2026, Wormhole launched its Native Token Transfers (NTT) framework, allowing tokens and data to move between Solana and 30+ chains, including Ethereum and Avalanche. NTT gives projects control over metadata and upgrades and helps solve liquidity fragmentation.
Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) enables secure USDC transfers between Solana and other blockchains via a burn-and-mint model. At the same time, omnichain versions of USDT and Tether Gold (XAUT) built on LayerZero Legacy Mesh link Solana to external liquidity pools.
High TPS and very low fees have also made Solana attractive for NFTs and gaming. Marketplaces like Tensor and Magic Eden use state compression to mint NFTs for about $0.00011 — and scale that to millions. Games such as Star Atlas, Aurory, and Genopets chose Solana for fast confirmation times and portable assets. Hivemapper rewards contributors in a DePIN model.
Pump.fun remains the largest memecoin launchpad on Solana — according to Jupiter, it has about 44% market share. By mid-2025, over 11.9 million tokens had been created there, and on some days it accounted for 71% of all launches on the network. Memecoins rarely last long, but they drive on-chain activity and demonstrate how flexible and cheap this L1 is.
Developer community and hackathon culture
Solana has a very active developer community. In Electric Capital’s 2025 Developer Report, Solana was named the number-one ecosystem for attracting new developers: builder interest grew 83% year on year.
The open architecture with a single global state means all programs run on one ledger — which gives powerful composability and removes L2 fragmentation.
Tools such as the Anchor framework make smart-contract development simpler, and better RPCs plus local validators speed up debugging. All of this lowers the entry barrier and lets teams test new dApps quickly.
Solana Mobile and the Seeker smartphone
Solana’s consumer strategy is to give blockchain apps native mobile access. In August 2026, global shipping of the Seeker smartphone began. It comes with more than 2,500 dApps preinstalled from the Solana dApp Store, includes a hardware Seed Vault, and ships with a Genesis NFT for early access and rewards.
The device uses a decentralized app-delivery architecture (TEE-like), so developers can publish dApps without the fees and limitations of traditional app stores. Priced at $450–$500, Seeker targets both developers and crypto users.
This mobile push is part of a broader attempt to put crypto “in your pocket.” Other brands tried crypto phones before, but the combination of Solana’s dApp ecosystem, low fees, and built-in wallet generated more than 150,000 preorders. Indirectly, this shows that the next wave of on-chain services will be mobile-first.
Conclusion
Today there are more than 400 dApps running on the network, and Solana remains a key hub for blockchain developers. In Q3 2026, corporate treasuries on Solana exceeded $1.72 billion — a signal of growing institutional confidence. Taken together, the rise of treasuries, ETFs, and tokenized equities shows that Solana is maturing into a full-scale financial ecosystem where SOL functions both as a utility token and as a liquid investment asset.
