Chains & Infrastructure
Solana Chain: Proof of History, Finalized Commitments, USDC
Solana is a proof of history chain with Tower BFT proof of stake, live since 16 March 2020. A finalized block needs 66 percent of stake plus 31 confirmed blocks above it. Each signature costs a fixed 5,000 lamports. The observed median USDC transfer fee was about $0.00053 on 11 September 2026. Five issuer-listed stablecoins run natively.
| Fact | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis (slot 0) | Mainnet Beta, 16 March 2020, 14:29 UTC | C-23 | |
| Consensus | Proof of history with Tower BFT proof of stake | C-21 | |
| Finalized commitment | 66 percent of stake voted, plus 31 confirmed blocks above | C-20 | |
| Block time (issuer site data) | 400 milliseconds | C-19 | |
| Epoch length | About 2 days | C-19 | |
| Base fee per signature | 5,000 lamports, half burned, half to validators | C-19 | |
| Observed median USDC transfer fee | 5,180 lamports, about $0.00053 | C-23 | |
| Stablecoins on chain (provider) | $16,148,635,985 | C-10 |
What Solana is
Solana is a high-throughput L1 that carries a large USDC economy. Its mainnet is called Mainnet Beta, in the issuer’s own usage [4]. Genesis, slot zero, carries a block time of 16 March 2020, 14:29 UTC [8]. Two independent RPC providers returned that timestamp identically [7] [8]. The network’s own name for itself is worth keeping visible. Mainnet Beta is the issuer’s term, not this page’s gloss.
How consensus works
Solana’s design pairs two mechanisms. Proof of history verifies the order and passage of time between events [6]. The whitepaper describes it as a proof that reduces messaging overhead when used alongside a consensus algorithm [6]. The consensus algorithm here is proof of stake, through an implementation the docs call Tower BFT [4].
The distinction matters. Proof of history is a clock, not a consensus. Security comes from the staked validators. The whitepaper says so in its own framing [6].
What finality means here
Solana exposes commitment statuses to clients. Processed, confirmed, finalized [5]. The finalized standard is precise. It requires that 66 percent or more of stake has voted on the block [5]. It also requires 31 or more confirmed blocks built atop it [5].
One design claim travels with this topic, and it is older than the network. The whitepaper’s sub-second finality phrasing is a 2017 design claim about the BFT pipeline [6]. It is not the finalized commitment bar. This page records both and does not conflate them. Design claims and shipped commitments stay in separate sentences throughout.
Timekeeping comes from the docs. A slot is the period in which a leader produces a block [4]. The issuer’s own page data states a 400 millisecond block time [4].
An epoch runs about 2 days [4]. Both figures are labeled issuer site data. They are the issuer’s numbers, embedded in its documentation.
How fees work
The fee model is fixed, not market-priced. Each signature costs 5,000 lamports [4]. A lamport is 0.000000001 SOL [4]. Half of each base fee is burned. Half goes to the validators [4]. On top of that sits an optional priority fee, which moves a transaction ahead of others executing at the same time [4].
Fees, measured
The observed leg. Nineteen simple USDC transfers, sampled on 11 September 2026. The median fee was 5,180 lamports, about $0.00053 [8] [10]. The sample minimum was exactly 5,000 lamports. The floor confirms the documented rate [4]. The median priority component was 50 lamports over the sample [8]. A quiet day, in the sample’s own terms.
The conditions leg is the docs rate itself. At 5,000 lamports per signature, a one-signature USDC transfer costs 5,000 lamports [4]. In dollars at the same-session price, about $0.000512 [10]. That dollar figure is arithmetic on the documented rate, labeled as such.
The checking trail. Ten of ten sampled signatures were re-fetched on the official public RPC [7]. Fees were identical. Solana receipts are deterministic, so the providers agree by construction. A third leg: the issuer’s page data states a $0.00025 average transaction fee [4]. Different metric, all transaction types, recorded as context only.
The stablecoin economy
One provider’s chains table put all stablecoins on Solana at $16,148,635,985 on 11 September 2026 [9]. Database-reported, that provider’s own methodology. Second-largest in this library’s eight-chain set, after Ethereum.
The roster
Five issuer-listed stablecoins run natively on Solana. Addresses are issuer-doc verbatim. Each was decoded on two RPC providers, and both agree on ownership and decimals [7] [8].
| Token | Address, as the issuer publishes it | Program |
|---|---|---|
| USDC, Circle [1] | EPjFWdd5AufqSSqeM2qN1xzybapC8G4wEGGkZwyTDt1v | Token |
| USDT, Tether [3] | Es9vMFrzaCERmJfrF4H2FYD4KCoNkY11McCe8BenwNYB | Token |
| EURC, Circle [2] | HzwqbKZw8HxMN6bF2yFZNrht3c2iXXzpKcFu7uBEDKtr | Token |
| PYUSD, PayPal | 2b1kV6DkPAnxd5ixfnxCpjxmKwqjjaYmCZfHsFu24GXo | Token-2022 |
| PAXG, Paxos | 5GgRAEmv8ZxF2PR5hY72Qs5x1bnQ6UK2RbTPoqJ3wSwW | Token-2022 |
The program column carries real mechanics. PYUSD and PAXG live on the Token-2022 program. The rest live on the classic Token program [8]. Token-2022 supports extensions that change transfer behavior, and a sender needs to know which program a mint uses.
Provenance, stated. The Circle and Tether rows come from the issuers’ current tables, captured fresh on 11 September 2026 [1] [2] [3]. The PayPal and Paxos rows are issuer-published addresses banked by this project’s token verification packs. Solana addresses are base58 and carry no checksum analog. Both RPC decodes agreed, and the issuer tables remain the source of record.
One omission, stated. No banked address rows exist for the Sky tokens on Solana in the research set. Their native-or-bridged status here is unverified. They are omitted, not asserted absent.
Where this page sits
The chains hub holds the other networks. The USDC page and the USDT page hold the two tokens this chain carries at scale. The PYUSD page holds the Token-2022 dollar token in the roster’s fourth row. The layer 1 versus layer 2 page places this chain as a self-securing base layer. Every figure above carries its date.
Last verified