The Solana network — how it works and how reliable it is
The Solana network in plain words
The network's coin, SOL, is covered in the Solana profile.
Think of paying by card in a shop. At the till the payment goes through in a second, while the bank completes it for good later, sometimes the next day. With Alpenglow these two steps almost merge on Solana: the developers expect a transfer to become final less than a second after it is sent, although there is no guarantee of that.
What happens to my transfer if the Solana network stops?
Whatever crypto you hold on your address will not go anywhere, but new transfers will not go through until the network is running again. A transfer that has already been confirmed stays valid. A transfer still waiting to get into a block is valid only for a limited time, about a minute or less (roughly 150 blocks). After that it is cancelled automatically, and you need to send it again1.
Do not send the same transfer many times in a row. First check whether the first one went through in a block explorer, a website that shows whether a transfer arrived.
How to send transfers without mistakes is covered in how to send crypto.
How Solana validators agree on new blocks
Blocks on the network are assembled and checked by validators. Each of them keeps SOL as a deposit, and the larger the deposit, the more weight its vote carries. Both roles are described in miners and validators and what is consensus.
The new Alpenglow voting system was switched on on 21 October 20262. Picture a meeting where every vote used to be entered into the minutes first and counted only afterwards, while now people raise their hands and the count is visible at once. Validators send their votes directly to each other, and the votes are no longer written into the blockchain. Final confirmation used to take about 12.8 seconds2, and now it is designed to take about 150 milliseconds2.
Nothing changes for you: wallets (apps for crypto) and other apps work as before2.
Why doesn't an Ethereum wallet work on the Solana network?
Solana has its own engine for programs and its own address format, different from Ethereum's. A Solana address is a long string of letters and digits without "0x" at the start. A wallet that only works with Ethereum and similar networks cannot read such an address. You need a wallet that supports Solana, and some of them are multi-network wallets, meaning they work with several networks at once. Why one wallet can have the same address on several networks is explained in what is EVM.
Programs and tokens on the Solana network
Smart contracts, the programs inside a network that carry out set rules on their own, are simply called programs on Solana (smart contract). Exchanges, lending services, NFT marketplaces, games and payment services run on them.
Tokens, that is, crypto issued on top of the network, are issued on Solana in a common format similar to ERC-20 on Ethereum (more in what is a token and token standards). Almost anyone can issue a token through ready-made services, with no programming. That is how the meme token Bonk appeared, for example, which was given away to the community for free in December 20223.
When a new token arrives at an address for the first time, the network creates a separate slot for it and takes a small deposit in SOL for that slot. The deposit is usually paid by whoever creates the slot, which most often means the sender. If the slot is closed, the deposit comes back, but it goes to whoever the slot's owner names, so it usually does not return to the sender. For the current size of the deposit, see.
Solana network reliability and halt history
From December 2020 to February 2024 the Solana network stopped completely for various reasons, from software bugs to floods of requests from bots4.
- December 2020, about 6 hours. A bug in how blocks were passed between validators.
- 14 September 2021, about 17 hours. Bots flooded the network with requests during a token launch.
- Late April 2022, about 8 hours. Another flood of bot requests, and validators ran out of memory.
- June 2022, about 4.5 hours. A software bug made validators disagree about blocks.
- September 2022, about 8.5 hours. One validator ran two copies of itself, and the network got tangled in duplicate blocks.
- February 2023, almost 19 hours. A huge block overloaded the network, and it was restarted manually.
- 6 February 2024, about 5 hours. A bug in validator software sent it into an endless loop. On 30.10.2026 this is still the last complete halt.
On 12 August 2026 the network came close to halting. A failure at the hosting provider TeraSwitch, a company that houses servers, cut off about 90 validators holding almost 29% of the deposit for roughly half an hour. The network would have stopped at a third of the deposit, it fell a few percent short of that, and blocks kept being confirmed5.
After the halts, a second independent program for validators appeared on the network. When validators run different programs, a single bug cannot stop all of them at once. While the switch to Alpenglow is under way, the second program is not supported, and all validators run programs of one family2. So on 30.10.2026 one bug can again affect everyone. To see when the second program can run on the network again, check.
There have been no complete halts since February 20246. This is an observation on 30 October 2026, and it is no promise for the future.
Who can stop the Solana network?
No company and no single person can switch the network off alone. The network stops when too large a share of the validators' deposit goes offline or breaks down. Past halts were caused by software bugs and overload, and the validators restarted the network themselves by agreeing among each other.
Where to check current data on the Solana network
Speed and average fees, the number of validators and their shares of the deposit, and the shares of validator programs change all the time, so look for fresh data at.
The progress of the Alpenglow switch and the next steps of the upgrade:.
Frequently asked questions
Is Proof of History still needed after Alpenglow?
Will there be more big upgrades?
Is the Solana network faster than Ethereum?
How many validators does the Solana network have?
More detail on Solana's design and upgrades
At launch the main network was called Mainnet Beta. Protection by deposit is called proof of stake. Programs for Solana are most often written in the Rust language, frequently with the Anchor framework, and tokens are issued in the SPL Token format and its newer version, Token-2022.
Before Alpenglow the network ran on a voting system called Tower BFT. It had a built-in "clock", Proof of History, which put a timestamp on every operation and set the rhythm of blocks2. Alpenglow was switched on at the start of epoch 1064, and its first part, Votor, replaced Tower BFT. If validators holding 80% of the deposit vote for a block straight away, the block is final after one round. If fewer do, a second round follows, where 60% is enough2.
| Before Alpenglow | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Are validators' votes written into the blockchain? | yes | no |
| Does the Proof of History "clock" set the pace of blocks? | yes | no |
| Final confirmation in a fraction of a second? | no1 | yes2 |
| Do you need to change anything in your wallet? | no | no |
On 30.10.2026, Solana cannot take away a validator's deposit for mistakes (this penalty is called slashing). The proposal to introduce it was closed in January 20267.
The second validator program, Firedancer, is built by the Jump team. As things stood on 30.10.2026, Firedancer and Frankendancer were not supported, and validators used programs of the Agave family. Before Alpenglow the network halted if one third of all deposits went offline. According to the developers' calculations, the new voting system keeps working even if up to 20% of the deposit goes offline and up to another 20% acts maliciously2.
