Solana (SOL): questions and answers
Every answer below is written from the sources listed at the end of this page, with the date each one was checked.
The question that decides how you read Solana
Solana is usually sold on its numbers. The more revealing question is what a chain has to give up to reach them — and what happens on the days it cannot keep up.
The design starts from a complaint about distributed systems rather than about money. Classical Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus spends most of its effort on one thing: getting machines that do not trust each other to agree on what happened first. Every round of that agreement is a round of messages, and messages are the ceiling on throughput.
Solana's whitepaper proposes removing the question instead of answering it faster. Proof of History is a verifiable delay function — a hash chain that can only be produced by doing work in sequence — so the ledger itself carries a proof that time passed between two events. If ordering is already embedded in the data, validators can stop negotiating it and start processing.
What is still unsettled
Whether the outages were growing pains of beta software or evidence of a fragile design remains genuinely contested, and Monivo takes no side. What is observable is the direction of the work: fee markets that price congestion locally, a second independent validator client to remove single-implementation risk, and scheduler changes aimed at shedding load instead of stalling. Those are the right responses; whether they are sufficient is something only future load answers.
What this means when you swap SOL
Solana addresses are base58-encoded public keys with no memo or tag, so the address is the entire instruction. Confirmation is fast — normally seconds — and base fees are very low, but during heavy demand transactions compete through optional priority fees, so a transfer sent with none can simply be dropped rather than queued.
The common and expensive mistake involves tokens rather than SOL. SPL tokens live in token accounts derived from your wallet, and a destination that has never held a given token may need that account to exist first. Always send the token the receiving wallet actually expects, and keep a small SOL balance for fees and account rent — a wallet with zero SOL cannot move its own tokens.
Common SOL questions
- How do I swap Solana (SOL) instantly on Monivo?
- Pick SOL as the asset you want to receive, choose what you're paying with, paste your wallet address, and confirm. Monivo routes your order to the provider offering the best rate, and most swaps complete in under 10 minutes — no account needed.
- Can I swap SOL with no KYC?
- Yes. Crypto-to-crypto swaps of SOL on Monivo require no identity verification and no sign-up. Only fiat purchases (card or bank transfer) require KYC, because banks and payment processors mandate it.
- Is swapping Solana on Monivo non-custodial?
- Yes. Monivo never holds your funds. SOL is sent directly to the wallet address you provide, so you stay in control the whole time.
- Which network does SOL use here?
- Monivo supports Solana on the Solana network. Always double-check that your receiving wallet supports this network before confirming.
- What fees apply when I swap SOL?
- Monivo adds zero fees on top. The quote you see already reflects the best aggregated rate across connected providers, including their network and processing costs — all fees are included in the shown amount.
- Why did my Solana transaction disappear instead of failing?
- Solana transactions carry a recent blockhash that expires. If the network is busy and your transaction is not included before that blockhash ages out, it is dropped rather than left pending — nothing is deducted, and the transfer simply has to be retried, usually with a priority fee attached.
- Do I need a memo or tag to send SOL?
- No. A Solana address is a complete destination on its own. If a platform asks for an extra reference field, check the network you are actually sending on — several other chains require one, and the mismatch is a frequent source of stuck deposits.
- Why does my wallet need SOL if I am only moving USDC?
- Fees on Solana are always paid in SOL, and token accounts carry a small rent-exempt balance in SOL as well. A wallet holding only tokens has no way to pay for its own transaction, so keep a small SOL reserve alongside whatever you actually use.
Sources and dates (7)
- Proof of History is described as a verifiable delay function that encodes ordering into the ledger. Solana whitepaper · 2017 · checked 2026-09-22
- Mainnet beta stopped producing blocks on 14 September 2021 after transaction flooding exhausted validator memory. Solana Foundation outage overview · 2021-09-14 · checked 2026-09-22
- Recovery required validators representing a large majority of stake to coordinate a restart from an agreed slot. Jump Crypto post-mortem · 2021-09-21 · reported, not independently confirmed · checked 2026-09-22
- The outage was tracked publicly in the validator client issue tracker during recovery. Solana validator repository issue · 2021-09-14 · checked 2026-09-22
- IQ.wiki records Anatoly Yakovenko as Solana's founder and dates the project to 2017. IQ.wiki · reported, not independently confirmed · checked 2026-09-23
- Messari describes Solana as a high-throughput, low-cost Layer-1 network. Messari · reported, not independently confirmed · checked 2026-09-23
- CoinGecko maintains the live SOL market page under the Solana asset name. CoinGecko · reported, not independently confirmed · checked 2026-09-23