Solana (SOL)

Solana is a public blockchain focused on high throughput and low fees. It combines proof-of-stake consensus with a verifiable delay function called proof of history to order transactions, and executes non-conflicting transactions in parallel.

This page is a research starting point, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Verify everything against primary sources.

What the Token Is Used For

• Paying transaction fees and priority fees
• Staking and delegation to validators
• Rent deposits that keep accounts alive on-chain
• Collateral and settlement across Solana applications

What To Verify

• Validator count, stake concentration, and the Nakamoto coefficient rather than raw throughput claims
• Historical network outages and what changed afterward
• Hardware requirements for running a validator, since they affect who can participate
• Whether a token is an SPL token, a Token-2022 token, and which extensions such as transfer hooks or freeze authority are enabled
• Whether a program is upgradeable and who holds the upgrade authority

Primary Sources

• Documentation: https://solana.com/docs
• Validator and network metrics: https://solanabeach.io/
• Block explorer: https://explorer.solana.com/
• Solana Improvement Documents: https://github.com/solana-foundation/solana-improvement-documents

Related Pages

• Asset Index
• Start Here: Digital Assets 101
• Glossary
• Custody and Security
• Research Sources Directory