What is Solana (SOL)?

Solana is a blockchain built to process many transactions quickly and cheaply. Like Ethereum, it runs smart contracts. Its coin is called SOL, and it pays fees and is staked to secure the network.

Where it came from

Solana was founded in 2018 by Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. Its first block was created on 16 March 2020.

How it works

Solana is secured by proof of stake. Validators lock up SOL and take turns producing blocks.

It adds a technique its designers call proof of history. Block producers run a continuous chain of calculations that works as a clock. It gives the network a shared record of the order of events, so validators do not need a central clock.

Holders can stake by delegating SOL to a validator. Solana's documentation says delegating does not give the validator ownership or control of your tokens. Lesson 50 uses this as an example.

Supply

SOL has no maximum supply. New coins are created to pay validators and stakers.

• The schedule was designed to start at about 8% a year and fall each year towards a long-term rate of 1.5%.
• In November 2025 the rate was about 4.2%, falling by 15% a year.
• In August 2026 validators voted, with 67% in favour, to double the pace of that fall to 30% a year. That would bring the rate to 1.5% by about 2029, three years earlier than before.

Part of every transaction fee is destroyed.

Lesson 50 explains why this matters to stakers. When rewards come from new coins, staking mostly protects you from being diluted.

What people use it for

Solana hosts tokens, stablecoins, trading and NFTs. It has also seen heavy memecoin trading. In January 2025 Donald Trump's memecoin launched on Solana and caused a surge in use.

Risks to know

• Outages. The network stopped for about 17 hours in September 2021, and for several hours at a time in May and October 2022.
• It fell hard with FTX. When the exchange FTX collapsed in November 2022, SOL fell about 40% in one day. FTX and its sister firm held large amounts of it.
• Memecoins. Lesson 11 covers what you are buying when a token has no use.
• Inflation. New SOL dilutes holders who do not stake.
• Price swings, as with every coin.

Learn more

Lesson 8 introduces proof of stake. Lesson 50 gives seven checks for any staking offer, and the staking rewards calculator in Tools shows what inflation does to a rate.