SOL

Solana

Last updated Sep 1, 2026

A fast smart-contract ledger. Speed is the pitch. Uptime is the question.

Live price

Checking the price.

Launched: 2020
Consensus: Proof of Stake + Proof of History
Settlement: Sub-second blocks
Supply: Inflationary, declining over time
Job: Smart contracts

What it is

Solana is a public smart-contract network. Mainnet beta opened in March 2020. SOL pays transaction fees and is staked by validators. The design goal is high throughput: a lot of cheap transactions, aimed at apps, trading, and consumer use.

How it agrees

Validators stake SOL. Proof of History is a clock that orders events before the vote, so the network spends less time arguing about sequence. That is the short version from Solana’s own docs. It is not mining, and it is not the XRP Ledger.

What beginners get wrong

Fast and cheap is not the same as finished. Solana has halted more than once. An outage is part of the public record, not a rumor and not a reason to invent a price target. A token on Solana is not SOL. Read the contract before you tap.

Sources

Launch window, SOL’s job, and Proof of History are summarized from Solana’s documentation at solana.com. This page is a classroom note, not those docs, and not a forecast.

Not financial advice. Knowing a ledger is not the same as buying the asset.

Keep reading