Traditionally, let’s start with an explanation. Solana is a modern high-speed blockchain based on the Proof-of-History consensus algorithm, which is a modification of the more popular Proof-of-Stake. Overall, the network is very fast and allows thousands of transactions per second.


For comparison, the Bitcoin network can handle around 5-7 transfers per second, whereas the Etherium network has around 15 transactions per second. Yes, once sharding is implemented in the Ethi network, that amount will grow by at least 64 times in the first phase of the launch, but that kind of thing has yet to happen.


We have clarified the latest data: Solana now carries out 4181 transactions per second, and the figure is constantly changing.

The number of transactions per second on the Solana network

Why such a powerful blockchain can’t keep up with the load and goes offline? The thing is that sometimes bots get active on the network and spam transactions for the sake of, for example, participating in the launch of a promising NFT collection. As a result, the number of transactions is measured in tens of thousands of units, which overloads node operators. That is, the performance of their devices is insufficient to keep Solana up and running, and as a result they stop working.

In addition, the network developers themselves support a "do first, fix later" approach. So they focus on blockchain performance, launch products and updates to attract users, and then fix problems as needed. That's how developers attract users and keep moving forward in development.

However, according to Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, a long-term solution to the problem has already been found.

Why isn’t Solana’s blockchain working?

Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has some good news: during an airing of Decrypt’s gm podcast, he said that the long-term solution to the problem is a new standalone network client called Firedancer. It was announced in August – Firedancer is expected to be able to significantly extend Solana’s scalability, meaning the altcoin network will no longer be subject to congestion.

The new client is being developed by a separate Web3 team at Jump Crypto in partnership with the Solana Foundation. The developers are sure that the release of Firedancer will allow more efficient processing of altcoin transactions in the next one or two years. The need to develop a solution by a separate team was explained by Yakovenko himself.

Since it is a separate team, the probability that they will have the same bugs as we do is zero.

That is, Anatoly makes it clear that Firedancer is a separate software for confirming transactions in the Solana network and making it work. The situation of overloading of node operators described above is typical for one network client, which is the only one so far. That means Yakovenko now believes that even if some of the node operators encounter problems and shut down, users of the other client will be able to continue operating and maintain the network.

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs

Solana’s co-founder said that the developers have been working on solving the project’s network resilience problem for a long time. That said, Solana is a “fairly complex” complex altcoin in terms of technological nuances that programmers constantly need to consider. In general, almost all incidents of Solana’s dysfunction “have to do with the human factor,” Yakovenko notes.

It’s a monolithic blockchain – like Etherium, only Solana does everything at once.

In particular, the last network crash was caused by a misconfiguration of one of the validators, which led to problems with selecting the longest “true” blockchain. However, Yakovenko notes that such incidents do not lead to losses of user funds: after all, Solana is decentralised enough, and there are at least 2000 validators in the network.

As long as at least one copy of the blockchain exists, the entire network can be restored.

In addition, Etherium has suffered from congestion problems on its network far more often than Solana. As a reminder, we’ve written repeatedly in the past about the skyrocketing transaction fees on the altcoin, with occasional transactions involving Ethereum smart contracts costing users hundreds of dollars. Ether’s recent move to a new Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm and subsequent upgrades should also solve this problem, but that remains to be seen.

It is fair to say that Etherium does not stop working under severe congestion. However, its sometimes huge transaction fees make the network unsuitable for many users, which is essentially the same thing.

Today, the cryptocurrency SOL is in ninth place in the overall ranking of coins by market capitalisation. The crypto is 87 percent behind its all-time high of $260. At the same time, SOL was one of the most profitable investments last year, as the cryptocurrency gained more than 11 thousand percent.

Current situation on Solana SOL cryptocurrency

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The release of Firedancer could be one of the reasons for a new wave of altcoin popularity. Unfortunately, the developers at Jump Crypto have not yet announced any specific dates regarding the release. More details about the client may be revealed by Yakovenko himself in November – recall that a large-scale Solana Breakpoint conference will be held at the beginning of the month, where the latest innovations in the altcoin ecosystem will be discussed.

Recall that we wrote a separate guide on steaking SOL with Ledger Live app. The text is available here.

Jump and Firedancer client page


We think that the release of an additional client will really benefit the blockchain. In this case it could provide better stability for the blockchain and become a kind of insurance against node failure for validators. However, this software will be created by completely different developers, which means that we should probably not expect similar problems for it.


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