Solana Tops 1 Billion Non‑Vote Transactions in a Week, Signaling Rising Network Activity

Solana has reached a new usage milestone as recent performance upgrades begin to show up in onchain activity. Following the Alpenglow upgrade, the network cut finality to about 100–150 milliseconds, pushing confirmation times toward near‑instant responsiveness more typical of Web2 systems. Over the past week, Solana processed 1 billion non‑vote transactions, the first time it has crossed that level. The figure highlights the chain's ability to sustain high throughput at scale. Benchmarking data underscores the gap with other major Layer 1s. Chainspect estimates Solana is currently handling close to 1,500 transactions per second on a 1‑hour average basis, about 41x Ethereum's throughput. Finality remains materially faster as well, with Solana settling transactions in roughly 12.8 seconds versus 12 minutes 48 seconds on Ethereum, a 98.3% reduction in confirmation time. Even with these improvements, the market has not clearly reflected the network's latest execution gains, raising questions about whether Solana's fundamentals remain underappreciated. With scalability increasingly proven, attention is shifting to market efficiency—how smoothly liquidity and capital move across the network. Projects such as Jito are working on a "market layer" designed to improve liquidity, execution quality, and capital efficiency without altering the base execution layer. In a recent post on X, Jito argued that Solana's next growth phase is more likely to come from strengthening this market layer than from simply increasing throughput. Stablecoin activity is also expanding. Circle has minted more than $64 billion in USDC on Solana, pointing to the network's growing role in stablecoin settlement. As liquidity deepens, efficient capital deployment becomes as important as raw transaction speed. Tokenomics remain a separate concern. Despite execution improvements, SOL is still among the more inflationary major Layer 1 assets. Onchain data shows Hyperliquid with an annualized supply growth rate of 0.14% and Ethereum at 0.83%, while Solana stands higher at 3.76%. The higher issuance rate can weigh on SOL's relative appeal even as network fundamentals improve. Solana's 1 billion non‑vote transaction milestone reinforces its execution strength, but the pace of progress in market structure and tokenomics may determine how quickly SOL's valuation aligns with underlying fundamentals. Final Summary: Solana surpassed 1 billion non‑vote transactions, reflecting stronger network activity and faster execution. The next priorities are improving market efficiency and addressing tokenomics to support SOL's long‑term value.