10 Things They Don't Want You to Know About Solana*

  1. Bots Exploit Slippage: Users face constant extraction and front-running by bots due to slippage, leading to significant losses.

  2. Costly Failed Transactions: If users don’t set enough slippage, transactions fail, yet they still have to pay the fees.

  3. Frequent Outages: Solana’s blockchain has experienced at least 12 major outages, raising concerns about its reliability.

  4. RPC Endpoint Manipulation: Companies running RPC endpoints can front-run your transactions, compromising user trust.

  5. Prolonged Beta Phase: Solana has been officially in beta for 4.5 years, far longer than expected for a major network.

  6. High Barrier to Validation: Becoming a validator requires substantial wealth, making it inaccessible to most users.

  7. Misleading TPS Claims: Solana markets itself as handling 3000 transactions per second (TPS), but this includes voting and failed transactions, with the actual rate closer to ~250 TPS.

  8. Inflated Supply: Solana’s circulating supply increased by 59.09 million over the last year, effectively printing $8.5 billion.

  9. Validator Privilege: A recent vote allows validators (the wealthy) to receive 100% of high-priority transaction fees, furthering the divide.

  10. FTX Sell-Off and Unlocks: FTX continues to sell off $7.5 billion in SOL, with a major unlock scheduled for March 2025 and continued monthly unlocks until 2028.

TL;DR: If this is what one of the major crypto networks looks like, you might start wondering if crypto is just a scam…

Source: Dave on X