What is Solana? A Beginner's Guide to SOL

Solana is a blockchain platform that supports smart contracts and decentralised apps (dApps). SOL is currently the seventh largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trading around $83 (April 2026). The Solana network is similar to Ethereum in many ways - it's proof-of-stake, supports dApps and more - but Solana has a unique additional consensus mechanism called proof-of-history, making it incredibly efficient.

Proof-of-history is a concept laid out by Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko in the Solana whitepaper. It can be seen as a sort of 'decentralised clock' that verifies the order and passage of time between events, helping the network run quicker and cheaper. Solana can handle up to 65,000 transactions per second (max theoretical), a rate that outcompetes Visa and Mastercard.

Solana is a popular choice for NFTs and dApps due to its low transaction fees, and it now supports thousands of dApps including:

• Jupiter, Solana's most-used dApp by transaction volume, which aggregates liquidity across all major DEXs to find users the best swap prices instantly.
• Raydium, the primary automated market maker on Solana, powering liquidity pools and token launches.
• Magic Eden, Solana's premier NFT marketplace for launching, trading and discovering collections.
• Helium and Hivemapper, two of the biggest DePIN (decentralised physical infrastructure) projects, using Solana's low costs to manage real-world hardware networks globally.
• Audius, a creator-friendly decentralised music streaming platform that pays fair royalties directly to artists.

What is SOL?

SOL is the native currency of the Solana network. It's used to pay transaction fees and is tradeable on all major exchanges. SOL reached an all-time high of $293 in January 2025, and currently trades around $83 with a market cap of approximately $48 billion.

Advantages of Solana

Solana is one of the fastest and cheapest blockchain networks, with average transaction fees under $0.002. It's also highly scalable, energy efficient, and has a thriving ecosystem of dApps. Solana ranked second only to Ethereum for new developer inflows in 2025, adding over 11,500 developers - a strong signal of long-term ecosystem health.

Disadvantages of Solana

The extent to which Solana is truly decentralised remains a point of debate. The platform also has a history of outages, though stability has improved significantly in recent years. The last recorded consensus failure was in February 2024, marking the longest period of network stability in the chain's history.

Solana is also less transparent than some other blockchains, with a significant share of its initial token allocation going to project insiders and the Solana Foundation.

Where can I buy SOL?

SOL is available on all major exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Kraken and Bybit. To buy SOL, create an account, verify your identity and deposit your local currency. You'll need a wallet that supports SOL. For larger sums, a cold wallet like Ledger is recommended.

Our top 3 SOL wallets are:

• Solflare (non-custodial, best for multi-platform use)
• Phantom (non-custodial, best for staking)
• Exodus (non-custodial, beginner-friendly)