Solana 

SOL Price

What is the Solana cryptocurrency?

Solana is a Layer-1 blockchain that combines Proof of History — a cryptographic clock that timestamps transactions before consensus — with Proof of Stake. Solana's token generation event took place on April 10, 2020, via a Coinlist auction at $0.22 per SOL. The network targets DeFi trading, payments, and consumer apps, hosting DEXs such as Raydium and Jupiter alongside liquid staking protocols like Jito and Marinade. SOL is the network's native coin.

Is Solana proof of work or proof of stake?

Solana uses Proof of Stake, combined with Proof of History — a cryptographic clock that records the order and time of transactions before validators vote. Per official documentation, this design lets validators process thousands of transactions per second with low fees. Staking rewards funded by new issuance secure the validator set. Solana does not use mining or Proof of Work.

What is the SOL coin used for?

SOL serves three core functions on Solana: paying gas fees for transactions and smart-contract execution, staking and delegation to secure the network, and network governance participation. SOL also acts as a base quote asset on Solana DEXs, where Raydium and Jupiter price SPL tokens against SOL. Developers deploy Rust and C programs on the network.

Is SOL a coin or a token?

SOL is a coin — the native asset of Solana's own Layer-1 blockchain. SOL has no on-chain smart-contract address, which distinguishes a native chain asset from tokens issued on another network. DropsTab classifies Solana under Blockchain.

What is Solana's total supply and inflation model?

Solana has no maximum supply — the asset is inflationary. Per DropsTab data as of September 2026, total supply stands at approximately 634.6 million SOL. Official inflation starts at 8% annually and disinflates 15% year-over-year toward a long-term floor of 1.5%. Roughly 50% of transaction fees are burned, which partially offsets new issuance.

How does Solana's token unlock schedule affect sell pressure?

Per DropsTab vesting data, the single major cliff occurred on January 7, 2021, releasing about 227.5 million SOL across the Seed, Founding, Validator, Strategic, Team, and Foundation allocations at once. Since then, unlocks run as small monthly linears — the Team allocation releases about 1.45 million SOL per month. No large future cliff remains; ongoing inflation, not vesting, drives supply growth. Alameda and FTX bankruptcy-estate allocations total roughly 54 million SOL — a recurring overhang during estate sales.

Who backed Solana and how much did Solana raise?

DropsTab fundraising data shows approximately $359.7 million raised across seven rounds. The June 2021 Private Sale raised $314.15 million — the dominant raise — led by a16z and Polychain Capital, with Multicoin Capital, Jump Trading, CoinFund, ParaFi, and Alameda Research participating. Earlier rounds include a $20 million Series A led by Multicoin Capital in June 2019 and a $3.17 million seed round in March 2018.

What does Solana's fundraising signal about project maturity?

Tier 1 funds led Solana's largest round — a16z, Polychain Capital, and Jump Trading all carry Tier 1 status on DropsTab. No single VC holds more than 20% of supply, keeping concentration risk low. The a16z, Polychain, and Multicoin overlap across rounds aligns these funds' incentives around the network's long-term performance. Solana also auctioned 8.5 million SOL — 1.7% of the genesis pool — to the public on Coinlist in March 2020 with no lock-up.

Where is SOL traded — centralized or decentralized exchanges?

Per DropsTab data, SOL trades on 160+ centralized spot venues, including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, and Bybit, with spot pairs quoted in USDT, USD, USDC, EUR, BTC, and local fiat currencies such as KRW, MXN, TRY, and JPY. Derivatives trade on 20+ additional venues, including Binance Futures, Deribit, and Hyperliquid. No DEX markets are tracked — as a native L1 coin, SOL serves as the quote and gas asset on other chains' DEXs rather than trading there.

Does Solana have an airdrop?

No — the Solana Foundation runs no airdrop program, and SOL has traded since its April 10, 2020 token generation event. Airdrops in the Solana ecosystem belong to individual projects: Jupiter, Jito, Kamino, Pump.fun, and Backpack have run their own token distributions, but each distributed a separate SPL token rather than SOL. On solana.com, "airdrop" refers only to devnet test SOL for developers.