Dev2Moon.wtf

Overview

Solana is an open-source blockchain platform renowned for its high performance and low transaction costs, supporting smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps). Founded in 2017 by Solana Labs in San Francisco, it leverages “Proof of History” (PoH) and “Proof of Stake” (PoS) to achieve a theoretical throughput of up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS) with fees averaging $0.00025. Its native token, SOL, is used for transaction fees, staking, and governance. Launched in 2020 with an initial supply of 500 million tokens, Solana’s total supply reached approximately 587 million by February 2025, ranking among the top cryptocurrencies by market cap. The Solana ecosystem spans decentralized finance (DeFi, e.g., Raydium), non-fungible tokens (NFTs, e.g., Magic Eden), meme coins (driven by Pump.fun and SlerfTools, contributing to 90% of new tokens in 2024), payments (Solana Pay), real-world asset tokenization (RWA, e.g., Ondo Finance), and DePIN (e.g., Helium). Despite a severe price drop of over 75% due to the 2022 FTX collapse, Solana recovered through technological advancements and ecosystem growth. In 2025, Franklin Templeton’s ETF filing signaled institutional interest, though meme coin scams and FTX’s pending unlock of 11.2 million SOL posed challenges.

Development History

• 2017: Anatoly Yakovenko founded Solana in San Francisco, leveraging his Qualcomm experience in distributed systems.
• 2018: Solana Labs released its whitepaper, introducing PoH to address blockchain scalability issues.
• 2020: The Solana mainnet Beta launched in March, raising hundreds of millions from investors like Andreessen Horowitz.
• 2021: Solana gained attention with NFT and DeFi booms, with SOL’s price soaring [2].
• 2022: The November FTX collapse hit Solana hard, as FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried backed it and Alameda Research held 58 million SOL [3]. SOL fell from $32 to $8, a 75%+ drop, impacting projects like Serum, though recovery began.
• 2023: Solana introduced the Saga phone and partnered with Visa for USDC settlement in September [4], boosting payment applications.
• 2024: Meme coin frenzy (led by Pump.fun), RWA (e.g., Ondo Finance), and DePIN (e.g., Helium) drove rapid growth, with Seeker phone pre-orders exceeding 140,000.
• 2025: Solana expanded in payments, RWA, and DePIN, with Franklin Templeton filing for an SOL ETF, though meme coin scams and FTX’s 11.2 million SOL unlock stirred market volatility.

Technical Features

Solana focuses on performance and scalability with key technologies:

• Proof of History (PoH): Cryptographic timestamps reduce node synchronization overhead, boosting throughput.
• Proof of Stake (PoS): Combined with PoH, ensures network security and decentralization.
• Tower BFT: Optimized Byzantine Fault Tolerance enhances resilience.
• Gulf Stream: Mempool-free transaction forwarding speeds up confirmation.
• Sealevel: Parallel smart contract execution engine supports multitasking.
• Turbine: Block propagation protocol optimizes data transfer.
• Cloudbreak: Distributed storage solution handles large-scale data.

Official data claims a theoretical 65,000 TPS, with fees at $0.00025. By early 2025, Solana achieved 12 months of 100% uptime, marking significant stability.

Ecosystem

Solana’s ecosystem includes:

• DeFi: Serum, Raydium, and Orca lead, surpassing Ethereum in Q4 2024 transaction volume.
• NFTs: Magic Eden positions Solana as a top NFT hub after Ethereum.
• Meme Coins: Low-barrier tools like Pump.fun [5] and SlerfTools [6] made Solana the core of meme coin issuance, with 90% of 2024’s new tokens launched here.
• Payments: Solana Pay enables instant, low-cost transactions, adopted by Shopify and Visa.
• RWA: Homebase and Parcl tokenize real estate; Ondo Finance brings tokenized treasuries.
• Web3 & AI: Virtuals.io explores blockchain-AI integration.
• DePIN: Helium (wireless), Hivemapper (mapping), and Nosana (computing) build decentralized infrastructure.
• Mobile: Saga and Seeker phones integrate Web3 features.

In 2024, Solana added 7,625 developers, outpacing Ethereum’s 6,456.

Native Token

• Overview: SOL powers transaction fees, staking, and governance. Launched in 2020 with 500 million tokens, its supply hit 587 million by February 2025, with 470 million in circulation.
• Token Economics:
  • Initial Distribution: 38.89% to community reserves, rest to team and investors.
  • Supply: Inflation-based, no cap, rewarding stakers and validators.
  • Burn Mechanism: Previously 50% of fees burned, shifted to 100% validator allocation in February 2025.
• Inflation: Started at 8% in 2021, dropping 15% yearly, targeting 1.5% by 2031; currently 4.72% in 2025.
• Jito Tips: Post-SIMD-0096 (February 2025), inflation rose from 3.6% to 4.72% as fees fully went to validators; Jito tips peaked at 17,290 SOL weekly in August 2024.

Latest Developments

• ETF Filing: Franklin Templeton filed for an SOL ETF in February 2025, pending SEC decision by March.
• Meme Coin Scam: Early 2025 Libra scam caused a 40% SOL price drop.
• FTX Unlock: 11.2 million SOL to be unlocked in March 2025 from FTX liquidation.
• Network Performance: 100% uptime for a year by February 2025, revenue up to $840 million from $268 million in Q4 2024.

References

1. Solana Whitepaper. Solana Official Website [Accessed 2025-02-22]
   https://solana.com/solana-whitepaper.pdf
2. Solana Market Data. CoinMarketCap [Accessed 2025-02-22]
   https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/solana/
3. FTX Collapse: A Full Recap. Foresightnews [Accessed 2025-02-22]
   https://www.foresightnews.pro/article/detail/ftx-collapse-recap
4. Visa Expands Stablecoin Settlement to Solana. Visa [Accessed 2025-02-22]
   https://www.visa.com/newsroom/visa-expands-stablecoin-settlement-solana
5. What is Pump.fun and How Does it Work? Bitget [Accessed 2025-02-22]
   https://www.bitget.com/academy/what-is-pumpfun-pump-and-how-does-it-work