Solana is one of the cheapest and most efficient cryptocurrency networks on the market – for a single transaction on the Solana network, you can expect to pay around $0.000125.
Since launch, Solana has adopted a fixed approach to transaction fees, with a SOL gas fee of 0.000005 SOL per transaction. However, this changed last year with the introduction of additional fees that allow certain transactions to be prioritized for additional fees.
In this article, we’ll learn the ins and outs of Solana gas fees, explain how additional fees work, examine transaction stats, and more.
How much you can expect to pay for Solana gas
According to Solscan, one of Solana’s best browsers, regular transaction fees on Solana range from $0.000100 to $0.000150. As of March 13, the base fee paid for a single non-voting transaction on Solana was $0.000127, or 0.0000065 SOL.
However, some transactions on the Solana blockchain incur so-called additional fees. Over the past 24 hours, the average additional fee was 0.0000023 SOL, or $0.000045.
So, what’s the difference between Solana’s regular and extra fees? let’s see.
Regular Solana Gas Fee
The regular Solana gas fee is the cost of transacting on the Solana network. Thanks to an innovative proof-of-history (PoH) consensus mechanism, Solana has some of the cheapest fees on the market at fractions of a cent.
Additional Solana Gas Charges
The additional Solana Gas Fee (also known as the Priority Fee) is an optional fee that allows users to augment transactions with other users, reducing execution time. Here’s how the priority fee is calculated according to the Solana documentation.
“The priority fee is calculated by multiplying the requested maximum compute unit by the compute unit price (specified in increments of 0.000001 lamp ports per compute unit) rounded to the nearest lamp port.”
For additional context, lamport is a fractional native token with a value of 0.000000001 SOL.
Solana Gas Fees and Transaction Statistics
On average, users pay about 150 SOL per day for regular fees and over 30 SOL for priority fees. Priority fees account for roughly one-fifth of all dollar fees paid on the network, though that number varies widely from day to day.
Solana gas fees raised in the last month totaled between 100 and 150 SOL per day.source
How much of Solana’s gas fee is burned
Solana employs a system that burns 50% of all transaction fees. The other 50% is allocated to validators who process transactions.
Epoch is often used as the most common time reference when referring to blockchain statistics on Solana. Each epoch lasts about two and a half days. In the last epoch (number 421), 2,900 SOL were destroyed according to data from Solana Compass.
Chart showing changes in Solana gas fees.source
How Solana stacks up against other blockchains
Solana is one of the fastest and lowest cost blockchain networks in the industry. Founded in 2017 by software engineer Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana is capable of processing up to 65,000 transactions per second. Additionally, if the Firedancer developers are successful in implementing scalability improvements, the network could soon handle up to 600,000 TPS.
This is a much higher number of transactions than other popular networks — for example, Bitcoin is capable of 7 transactions per second, while Ethereum is around 30 per second. Here’s how Solana compares to a few other platforms:
| blockchain | cost per transaction | gross product | transaction speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | Less than $0.001 | 65,000 throughput | 5 seconds |
| bitcoin | $0.80 to $2.80 | 7 times per second | 10 minutes to 1 hour |
| Ethereum | $0.60 to $2.70 | 30 per second | 13 seconds |
| Polygon | $0.03 to $0.07 | 7,000 throughput | 2 seconds |
| Ripple | Less than $0.001 | 1,500 throughput | 3-5 seconds |
*Data for the past 30 days
Why Low Transaction Fees Matter
Transaction costs are one of the main factors that determine the activity level of the blockchain ecosystem. Low fees enable various blockchain use cases such as smart contracts, non-fungible tokens, decentralized financial applications and games. These use cases have no chance to emerge or achieve any meaningful adoption if transaction costs are too high.
Due to Solana’s low gas fee costs, NFT activity on the network has taken off in the last year, with Solana NFT marketplaces such as Magic Eden leading the charge. The long-term outlook for cheap transactions is one of the reasons why Solana is one of the best cryptocurrencies to buy long-term, at least in our opinion.
Bottom Line: Solana Gas Fees Are the Lowest in the Industry
After a spectacular market run in 2021 — during which SOL prices skyrocketed roughly 11,200% — Solana experienced a massive downturn in 2022, losing 94% of its value during the year. Additionally, the network experienced several outages, causing many cryptocurrency users to say it was dead. However, Solana is clearly still very much alive, having more than doubled in value this year — not to mention a significant increase in DeFi and NFT activity and the popularity of the Solana wallet.
Low oil prices could certainly help Solana make a bigger recovery and help the cryptocurrency reach above $1,000. Though the time horizon for that price target is likely years, if not decades. At the same time, you can check the pros and cons of Solana as an investment.
Information source: compiled from COINCODEX by 0x information.Copyright belongs to the author, without permission, may not be reproduced