Solana’s network hit with massive congestion; Will SOL retreat?

The decentralized finance (DeFi) crypto project Solana (SOL) has experienced a significant surge in investor interest, propelling the native token to rally to new heights, with meme coins launching on the platform also garnering significant attention.

Amidst this surge in interest, on-chain data indicates that the Solana network is currently experiencing severe congestion, with significant implications for transaction processing and network performance.

In particular, data shared on X (formerly Twitter) on March 17 by Dagnum_PI pointed out that the average ping time on the Solana network is reported to be between 20-40 seconds, indicating delays in communication between nodes. The metrics recorded on March 16 generally impact transaction confirmation times and overall network responsiveness.

Additionally, ping loss is significant, ranging from 30-50%, exacerbating congestion and contributing to transaction failures and delays. At the same time, the data indicated that up to 50-80% of transactions are failing on the Solana network, highlighting critical issues with transaction processing and network stability.

Solana’s lower TPS

According to the post, despite claims of achieving a transaction processing system (TPS) of 50,000, the observed TPS under full network conditions, with significant congestion and wait times of 30-50 seconds, is much lower

“In reality, under full network conditions with 30-50s wait times, Solana maxes out at 1100-1200 TPS. This has been observed consistently over the past 2 years during Solana congestion,” he said.

Interestingly, vote transactions are included in the claimed TPS of 50,000, which may not reflect the actual throughput available for non-vote transactions. This discrepancy between advertised and observed TPS could contribute to user dissatisfaction and misrepresentation of network capabilities.

Dagnum_PI suggested that the high levels of spam and Miner Extractable Value (MEV) from meme coin activity are overwhelming the network’s capacity, leading to transaction failures and delays.

Solana’s history of outages

It is worth noting that with Solana’s value rising, the network has in the past been plagued with concerns regarding outages, and the impact of the congestion could further complicate matters for the blockchain.

High rates of transaction failures can lead to frustration among users and developers, undermining confidence in the Solana network’s reliability and, consequently, having a negative impact on assets associated with the network – such as SOL.

Indeed, Solana has been marketed as a fast and cheap blockchain, often considered a potential ‘Ethereum (ETH) killer’. However, it has been plagued by concerns regarding high fees.

Meanwhile, by press time Solana was trading at $194, having rallied almost 1% in the last 24 hours. Over the past seven days, SOL is up over 35%.

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