Solana is a public blockchain platform founded in 2018 by Toly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, which officially launched in March 2020 via their company Solana Labs. Built as a fast, low-cost alternative to Ethereum, it uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to power smart contracts and high-throughput transactions, skyrocketing in popularity during the 2021 NFT boom—after a $314 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, the value of its native token, SOL, surged nearly 12,000% to reach a market cap of over $70 billion.

However, its history has been marked by volatility, including several network outages from heavy traffic, a major August 2022 wallet hack that drained $8 million from 9,231 users, and a 40% price crash following the November 2022 FTX bankruptcy. The platform also faced legal battles, including a 2022 class-action suit over misleading token supply disclosures and a June 2023 SEC lawsuit alleging SOL is an unregistered security. Despite these setbacks, Solana saw a resurgence in January 2025 when President Donald Trump launched his $TRUMP memecoin on the network, briefly pushing SOL prices back to near all-time highs.