Solana

Solana is a layer 1 blockchain that launched its mainnet beta in March 2020. It was built by Solana Labs, founded by Anatoly Yakovenko, with the goal of processing thousands of transactions per second on a single chain instead of relying on layer 2 networks. Its native coin is SOL, which is used to pay fees and to stake with validators.

Solana combines proof of stake with a timing mechanism called proof of history, which lets validators agree on the order of events without constant back-and-forth messaging. Typical transaction fees are a fraction of a cent, which has made it a popular home for memecoins, NFTs, consumer apps, and high-frequency DeFi trading.

The trade-off is that Solana validators need powerful hardware, and the network suffered several outages in 2021 and 2022. Reliability improved in later years, but critics still point to hardware requirements as a centralization risk compared with Bitcoin or Ethereum.