Solana processed 5.2 billion non-vote transactions in August, its busiest month on record, after a July upgrade raised the network's compute limit per block. The surge came alongside $1.34 billion in ETF inflows and a 46% price gain, and DeFi Development Corp. has now filed to raise up to $19.8 million partly to buy more SOL.
Solana processed 5.2 billion non-vote transactions in August, the busiest month in the network's history. Non-vote transactions strip out validator votes that keep the chain in consensus, leaving a direct read on how much real activity is happening on it.
A compute upgrade unlocked the surge
The catalyst was the SIMD-0286 upgrade, activated on July 29, which raised the maximum compute limit per block from 60 million to 100 million compute units without adding time to block production. Daily non-vote transactions then peaked at 171.9 million on August 10, pushing throughput close to 2,000 transactions per second. The week of August 17-23 alone accounted for 1.318 billion non-vote transactions, the fourth straight week above the 1 billion mark. Solana also activated 300-millisecond slot times in epoch 1024 on August 28, compressing block times further.
Institutions are buying in
US spot Solana ETFs pulled in $1.34 billion in August. SOL's price climbed 46% during the month, its first positive monthly return in ten months.
DeFi Development Corp. filed a preliminary prospectus supplement on Aug. 31 for a $19.8 million preferred-stock offering, branded "CHAD Stock," proposing 2.2 million shares at $9 each, with underwriters holding an option on 330,000 more. According to The Block: "raise up to $20 million through the preferred-stock offering to fund additional SOL purchases." DeFi Development itself said the proceeds are intended for general corporate purposes, including SOL and other digital-asset investments, without assigning a dollar amount or percentage to any Solana allocation.
Fee revenue is climbing too
Fee revenue on the blockchain also moved, with the seven-day average reaching approximately 9,200 SOL by late August, an 80% increase over three months. Separately, the SGP-0002 proposal passed on August 28 with over 67% support, reducing the SOL supply by 18.9 million tokens over six years by redirecting a portion of inflation.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, Crypto Daily
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
