Solana’s transaction network: analysis, insights, and comparison

Solana is recognized for its innovative Proof of History consensus mechanism, a cryptographic method that enables validators—participants responsible for verifying transactions—to efficiently record and order events without extensive communication, thus supporting high transaction rates. Despite its high-speed transactions capability, low cost transaction fees and significant market presence, it remains relatively underexplored in academic research. To address this gap, this paper uses graph-based modeling to analyze Solana’s transaction network. The analysis reveals several interesting key characteristics, including a high concentration of transactions among central nodes, a prevalence of unidirectional transactions, and a low graph density. Moreover, we observe a significantly higher transaction failure rate (approximately 20% compared to 0.1% on Ethereum) and a substantial proportion of zero-value transfers (around 7.6% versus 0.66% on Ethereum). These findings shed light on underexplored aspects of Solana’s ecosystem and provide insights that could influence future blockchain research and applications. The findings are particularly relevant for understanding behavior of blockchains with high transaction rates, and optimizing blockchain scalability and security.