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Writer's picturemeowdini

Solana’s Struggles: High Potential but Frequent Outages Undermine Credibility

Solana boasts low costs and high speed, but frequent outages and network congestion challenge its reliability and scalability.

Solana, often touted as a leading "Ethereum killer," promises high-speed, low-cost transactions. However, its potential is marred by frequent network outages and severe congestion issues, raising questions about its reliability and long-term viability. Despite impressive transaction speeds in theory, Solana's real-world performance falls short, leading to a degraded user experience and ongoing skepticism.


A chart showing the fluctuating transaction speeds and frequent network downtimes of Solana's blockchain.
A crypto chart depicting Solana's volatile transaction speeds and frequent network outages.

Key Points:


  • Frequent Network Outages: Solana has experienced over 150 hours of downtime in the past three years, with significant outages disrupting its core activities.


  • Congestion Issues: High demand, particularly from meme coins and bot activity, causes substantial network congestion, leading to transaction failures.


  • Transaction Speed vs. Reality: Despite claims of 50,000 TPS, Solana peaks around 1,000 TPS under real-world conditions, with 30-60 second waiting times.


  • Questionable Uptime Reporting: Official reports claim 100% uptime during months of reported outages, undermining trust in the network’s transparency.


  • Impact on Users and Developers: Consistent downtime and transaction failures frustrate users and developers, affecting the overall credibility of the blockchain.


  • Comparison with Visa: Unlike Visa, which has maintained stability after a major outage, Solana continues to struggle with frequent disruptions, impacting its real-world utility.



Solana’s high potential is overshadowed by its frequent network outages and congestion issues. For Solana to be taken seriously and achieve real-world utility, it must improve its network stability and transparency. Until then, its promise of being a fast, scalable blockchain remains unfulfilled.


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