Solana is a fast, low-fee blockchain that runs smart contracts and is often used for payments, trading and apps. This article explains who built it, how slots and fees work, why sending a token can need a small extra deposit, and how to follow it live.
For the basics, read what is a blockchain first.
What Solana is and who built it
Solana was designed by Anatoly Yakovenko, who published the idea in 2017, and the main network launched in 2020. It was first built by a company called Solana Labs, and today the software is open source with several teams working on it, and a non-profit foundation supports the ecosystem.
It was made to solve a scaling problem: keep one single, shared chain but make it fast and cheap enough for everyday use, instead of splitting activity across many layers. Typical uses today are token transfers, trading, payments, games and consumer apps. See layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3 for the other approach.
How it works: slots and leaders
Solana is a proof-of-stake chain. Time is cut into slots of about 400 milliseconds. For each slot, one validator is the leader and produces the block. The leader schedule is worked out ahead of time and is weighted by stake, so everyone knows who leads next. After a few slots the next leader takes over.
If a leader is offline, its slot is skipped and has no block. That is why some slot numbers are missing. A longer unit, the epoch, lasts 432,000 slots, about two days.
Proof of history in simple words
Validators must agree on the order of events. Proof of history is a way to create a verifiable clock. A chain of hashes is computed in sequence, and each hash proves that some time passed since the last one. Transactions are stamped into this sequence, so validators do not need to wait for messages from everyone to agree on ordering. It is one reason Solana can run so fast. It is a clock, not the consensus itself, which uses stake-weighted voting.
Finality
Solana reports three levels. Processed means a leader included the transaction. Confirmed means a supermajority of stake voted for it. Finalized means it is rooted behind 31 further confirmed slots, about 13 seconds. Most wallets wait for confirmed or finalized. See finality and confirmations.
Fees
The native coin is SOL. Its smallest unit is the lamport: 1 SOL is 1,000,000,000 lamports.
- Base fee: 5,000 lamports per signature. A simple transfer has one signature, so it costs 0.000005 SOL.
- Priority fee: optional. It is priced in micro-lamports per compute unit. A transaction asks for a number of compute units, a measure of work, and a higher priority fee raises its chance of being picked during busy moments.
Fees rise in two cases: heavy demand for the same popular accounts, such as during a hot token launch, and when senders raise priority fees to compete. Even then, fees usually stay small compared with Ethereum mainnet. Read Solana priority fees and gas and fees.
The accounts model and SPL tokens
On Solana, programs (smart contracts) are separate from the data they use. Data lives in accounts, and a transaction lists every account it reads or writes. This allows many transactions that touch different accounts to run in parallel.
Tokens follow the SPL token standard. Your wallet address does not hold a token directly. Each token you own sits in its own associated token account, tied to your address and that token's mint. When someone sends you USDC for the first time, an associated token account must be created for it. This needs a rent-exempt deposit of about 0.002 SOL, paid by the sender in most wallets. The deposit is not a fee: it stays in the account and can be reclaimed if the account is closed. If you send USDC to a new wallet and the wallet shows an extra small SOL cost, this is why.
Addresses
Solana addresses are base58 strings, typically 32 to 44 characters long, made of letters and digits except 0, O, I and l. They are not the same as 0x EVM addresses, so you cannot use a Solana address on Ethereum or Base, and the reverse. Always use the Solana network when sending SOL or SPL tokens. See wallets and keys.
Past outages
Solana has had periods when the network halted or slowed, especially in its early years, caused by software bugs and floods of transactions. Developers have since changed the software several times to handle this. Reliability has improved over time, but it is fair to say the network has a history of incidents that Ethereum and Bitcoin have had less of. Check live behavior rather than relying on old reports.
How Solana compares
| Solana | Ethereum | Base | Polygon | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block time | About 0.4 s | 12 s | 2 s | About 2 s |
| Gas token | SOL | ETH | ETH | POL |
| Address format | Base58 | 0x | 0x | 0x |
| Security model | Own layer 1 | Own layer 1 | Rollup on Ethereum | Own validators |
Solana is a single fast chain with its own tooling, not an EVM chain. Apps written for Ethereum do not run on it unchanged. See why fees differ between chains and the cheapest way to send USDC.
What to watch out for
- Wrong network. Sending USDC to a Solana address from an Ethereum network, or the other way around, will fail or lose funds. Match the network on both sides.
- Missing token account. If the receiver has never held that token, the first transfer costs the extra deposit.
- Fake tokens. Anyone can create a token with a familiar name. Check the mint address.
- Wallet drainers. Never sign a transaction you do not understand.
- Network congestion. In rare busy periods, transactions can be dropped. Retry with a priority fee.
Follow Solana live on ChainMonitor
- Live slots: one tile per second drawn from the live stream, with the leader, transactions and fees.
- Recent blocks list and the header search for transactions and addresses.
- Gas tracker: what a SOL send, a USDC transfer and a swap cost now.
- RPC health for Solana: public endpoints ranked by latency and lag.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Solana so cheap?
The base fee is a fixed 5,000 lamports per signature, and the chain has high capacity because it runs transactions in parallel on fast hardware. Fees only rise when demand for the same accounts is intense.
What is a lamport?
A lamport is the smallest unit of SOL. One SOL equals 1,000,000,000 lamports.
Why did I pay extra SOL when sending USDC?
If the receiver had no token account for USDC, one had to be created. That needs a refundable deposit of about 0.002 SOL.
Is Solana an EVM chain?
No. It has its own runtime, addresses and tools. EVM wallets and 0x addresses do not work on it directly.
What is proof of history?
A verifiable clock built from a sequence of hashes. It helps validators agree on the order of transactions quickly. Stake-weighted voting still decides the chain.
How long until a Solana transaction is final?
About 13 seconds for finalized. Confirmed arrives sooner and is often enough for small payments.