Solana (SOL) perpetual market

Solana is a high-performance layer-1 blockchain launched in March 2020 by Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana Labs, built to process transactions in parallel at very low cost. It combines proof-of-stake with a timing mechanism called proof-of-history that orders transactions before they are confirmed, letting the network target thousands of transactions per second with sub-second finality. That throughput made it a hub for consumer applications, high-frequency decentralized trading, NFTs and, more recently, a wave of memecoin activity. Solana's reputation was dented by a series of network outages and by its close association with the failed FTX exchange, whose collapse in late 2022 crushed the token, but it staged one of the sharpest recoveries in the sector through 2023 and 2024. Its native token, SOL, pays fees and is staked to secure the chain.