1/ Solana has quietly become one of the most stable and performant blockchains in crypto. From validator upgrades to program activity, here's a data-driven look at how far it's come 👇

2/ But first, a quick explainer intro. Validators verify transactions, create blocks, and reach consensus. Slot leaders are chosen to produce blocks in assigned time slots, bundling hundreds to thousands of vote and non-vote transactions.

3/ Validators submit vote transactions to reach consensus aka to agree on what is happening in the network. Non-vote transactions are any other kind of transaction, like a swap, a token transfer, etc.

4/ We'll measure Solana's performance using: block time (targeting 400ms), blocks produced (targeting 216k/day), and skip rate aka the share of slots when leaders fail to produce blocks.

5/ When a slot leader fails to produce a block in their assigned slot, the block gets skipped. Skip rate tracks the ratio of skipped versus total slots. Lower skip rates and block times increase bandwidth and reduce latency.

6/ Agave 2.0 was the first major release from Anza, founded by @solanalabs' core team members. The changes introduced in Agave 2.0 and since have reduced block time and skip rate, increased block production, and made these metrics more predictable.

@solanalabs 7/ @Solana skip rate dropped sharply over the last 3 years. Since 2021, Solana’s average daily skip rate has plummeted from 15% to 0.3% in 2025. Skip rates used to hit double digits regularly; in 2025 the max daily skip rate sits at 1%.

@solanalabs @solana 8/ Block time and block production have hit their targets. Block production has improved dramatically since 2021, when block times averaged 640ms and only 140,000 blocks were produced per day. So far in 2025, block time averages 400.1ms and block production 215,960 blocks/day.

@solanalabs @solana 9/ The skip rate has become much more predictable. The +1 to -1 standard deviation spread dropped from 1.4% to 0.3%, driven by Timely Vote Credits. TVC rewards quick votes (within 2 slots) and penalizes late ones (4+ slots), incentivizing faster consensus.

@solanalabs @solana 11/ Non-vote transaction CU became more stable in 2025. P90 CU variation dropped 2/3 and p99 dropped by half vs early 2024. P50 CU rose from 45k to 60k YoY.