SOL to GBP

Solana (SOL) is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain designed to support smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) at high speed and low cost. Anatoly Yakovenko, a former Qualcomm engineer, first outlined the concept in a 2017 whitepaper and co-founded Solana Labs with Raj Gokal, Greg Fitzgerald, and Stephen Akridge; the network's mainnet beta launched in March 2020. Solana was built to address blockchain's "trilemma" — the tradeoff between scalability, security, and decentralization that has constrained networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Solana combines Proof of History (PoH), a mechanism that cryptographically timestamps transactions before they're grouped into a block, with Proof of Stake (PoS) validation to order and confirm transactions quickly. Additional components, including the Gulf Stream transaction-forwarding protocol and the Sealevel parallel-processing runtime, help Solana process transactions in parallel. Solana Labs has described the architecture as theoretically capable of tens of thousands of transactions per second, though real-world throughput depends on network conditions.

SOL is Solana's native token, used to pay transaction fees, interact with smart contracts, and participate in network security through staking. SOL holders can delegate tokens to validators, who process and confirm transactions and earn staking rewards in return. SOL has no fixed maximum supply; new tokens are issued through a disinflationary schedule that reduces the annual issuance rate over time. As of late June 2026, SOL had a circulating supply of approximately 580 million tokens and a market cap of about $47 billion, ranking #7 among cryptocurrencies, according to CoinGecko.

Solana's low fees and high throughput have made it a hub for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, NFT marketplaces, and Web3 gaming projects, alongside a growing number of spot Solana ETFs that launched in late 2025.