Solana History
Discover the origins of Solana, meet its founders, and explore key milestones in the blockchain's journey from inception to today.
The Founders
Solana was founded by a team of brilliant engineers and entrepreneurs who wanted to solve blockchain's scalability problems:
Former Qualcomm engineer who invented Proof of History, the breakthrough technology that makes Solana so fast. He published the original Solana whitepaper in 2017.
Background:
- Former Principal Engineer at Qualcomm
- Worked on distributed systems and compression
- Invented Proof of History consensus mechanism
Serial entrepreneur and former General Partner at Saber Capital. He co-founded Solana Labs with Anatoly and has been instrumental in building the Solana ecosystem.
Background:
- Former General Partner at Saber Capital
- Serial entrepreneur and startup advisor
- Expert in business development and partnerships
Former Qualcomm colleague of Anatoly who helped build the first Solana prototype. He's been crucial in developing Solana's core technology and architecture.
Background:
- Former Senior Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
- Expert in systems programming and optimization
- Key architect of Solana's runtime
Another former Qualcomm engineer who joined the founding team. He's been instrumental in optimizing Solana's performance and building its validator infrastructure.
Background:
- Former Senior Staff Engineer at Qualcomm
- Expert in GPU programming and parallel computing
- Key contributor to Solana's validator software
Key Milestones
Important dates and achievements in Solana's history:
Solana's mainnet beta went live, marking the beginning of the high-performance blockchain era.
Days since launch:
1,958 days
The very first block on Solana's blockchain, marking the beginning of the network's history.
Solana organizes time into epochs (approximately 2-3 days each). The first epoch began with the genesis block.
What's an epoch?
A period of time used for staking rewards and validator rotation, typically lasting 2-3 days.
Network Information
Current network details and useful tools:
In Solana, accounts need to maintain a minimum balance (rent) to stay active. This prevents spam and keeps the network efficient.
Why rent exists:
- Prevents blockchain bloat
- Ensures accounts stay active
- Maintains network performance
Solana has been running continuously since its mainnet launch, processing millions of transactions with high speed and low costs.
5
Years
133
Days
Fun Fact
The Vision
From the beginning, Solana's founders had a clear vision: create a blockchain that could scale to billions of users without sacrificing decentralization or security. Their breakthrough was Proof of History, which allows the network to agree on time without waiting for consensus.
What makes Solana special:
- 1
Proof of History
A cryptographic clock that helps validators agree on time
- 2
Parallel Processing
Multiple transactions can be processed at the same time
- 3
Low Costs
Transactions cost fractions of a penny
- 4
High Speed
Thousands of transactions per second with sub-second finality
Explore Solana's Journey
From a whitepaper to a thriving ecosystem - discover how Solana became one of the world's fastest blockchains!