Solana (SOL) Detailed explanation and operation mechanism

Solana (SOL) Detailed explanation and operation mechanism

 1. Definition and background of Solana

Solana is a Layer-1 blockchain platform focused on high throughput, low latency and scalability, designed to support decentralized applications (dApps) and large-scale user needs. Founded in 2017 by former Qualcomm and Intel engineer Anatoly Yakovenko, its core innovation lies in the Proof of History (PoH) mechanism, combining Proof of Stake (PoS) and the optimized Byzantine Fault Tolerance Protocol (Tower BFT), it solves the scalability bottleneck of traditional blockchains. As of 2025, Solana Network has processed more than 49 million transactions, with an average daily active address of 407,000, and its ecosystem covers more than 600 projects such as DeFi, NFT, and gaming.

 2. Core technology: consensus mechanism

Solana's consensus mechanism consists of three parts: PoH, Tower BFT and PoS, forming a unique balance of efficiency and security:

• PoH (Historical Proof): Generates encrypted timestamps through a verifiable delay function (VDF), providing a global clock for transaction sorting, reducing synchronization overhead between nodes, and accelerating consensus reach. For example, each block needs to pass 400ms of SHA-256 hash calculation to generate a timeline to ensure that the order is not tampered with.
• Tower BFT: The Byzantine fault-tolerant protocol based on PoH optimization reduces voting rounds through a pre-confirmation mechanism, compresses the blocking time to 400ms, significantly improving throughput.
• PoS (Proof of Stake): Verifiers need to pledge SOL tokens to participate in network governance, allocate block generation rights according to equity weights, incentivize long-term participation and enhance security.

 3. Node architecture and sharding technology

• Node type: divided into Leader and Validator. The leader is responsible for generating blocks and broadcasting, and the validator confirms transaction validity through PoS, and the two operate in parallel to achieve high throughput.
• Data transmission optimization: Using tree structure and Turbine protocol, blocks are divided into fragments (Shreds) and attached erasure codes, reducing bandwidth pressure through multi-level propagation and tolerating partial data loss.
• Sharding technology: Sharding is not natively supported, but the development plan of the Firedancer client introduces sharding support, further improving TPS to theoretical 1 million+ through horizontal expansion.

 4. Performance indicators

• Throughput (TPS): Daily operation of 2500–3000 TPS, with a peak test of 65,000 TPS, far exceeding Ethereum (15-30 TPS) and Bitcoin (7 TPS). Firedancer Theory TPS can reach 600,000+ after upgrade.
• Delay: The average transaction confirmation time is 5 seconds, and the blocking interval is 400ms, which is significantly better than Ethereum's 16 minutes.
  
  
• Fees: The cost of a single transaction is about US$0.00025, which is one ten thousandth of that of Ethereum.

 5. Comparison with other blockchains

Solana is well-known for its high performance and low cost, suitable for high-frequency trading scenarios (such as high-frequency DeFi and chain games), while Ethereum focuses more on security and decentralization, suitable for complex smart contracts.

 6. Ecosystem and application cases

 Solana has eight major areas, including:

• DeFi: such as decentralized exchange Raydium (TVL exceeds US$800 million), lending agreement Solend.
• NFT: The Metaplex protocol supports low-cost NFT issuance, with an average daily transaction volume of more than 100,000 transactions.
• DePIN: Helium (decentralized 5G network), Hivemapper (map data crowdsourcing), etc. use Solana high throughput to process physical device data.
• Payment and Stablecoins: PayPal's PYUSD and Circle's USDC have integrated Solana to support instant micropayments.
• Games and social: Applications such as StepN (Move-to-Earn), Dialect (Decentralized Message Protocol) attract millions of users.

 7. The role of SOL tokens

•  Transaction fees: Pay online transfers, smart contract execution and other operations.
• Staking and Security: Users staking SOLs to participate in PoS consensus, obtain an annualized reward of about 6.67%, while enhancing network security.
• Governance: Holders vote to decide on governance proposals such as agreement upgrades, parameter adjustments, etc.
• Deflation mechanism: Some transaction fees are destroyed, offsetting inflation (current inflation rate is 6.67%), increasing scarcity in the long run.
• Ecological fuel: drives DeFi liquidity mining, NFT trading, chain game in-buying and other scenarios, and demand grows with the expansion of the ecosystem.

 8. Challenges and future prospects

• Network stability: Multiple interruptions in 2022 affected reputation and further optimization of node fault tolerance capabilities is needed.
• Decentralization improvement: The current number of validators (about 3,000) is relatively small than Ethereum (7,000+), and more independent nodes need to be attracted.
• Regulatory Risk: The SEC once listed SOL as a securities, which may affect the ETF approval process.

In the future, with the upgrade of Firedancer and the implementation of sharding technology, Solana is expected to consolidate its position as a benchmark for high-performance public chains and become the preferred infrastructure for large-scale applications of Web3.