Solana’s recent surge in market value and user adoption has thrown the spotlight on a familiar challenge: rising fees and congestion.
While the blockchain saw its market capitalization jump by $28 billion over the past month, its transaction priority fees soared tenfold, echoing the early congestion struggles faced by Ethereum (ETH).
This mirror-like trajectory has prompted developers and researchers to draw parallels between Solana’s response today and Ethereum’s response years ago.
Wei Dai, a Research Partner at 1kxnetwork and PhD holder from UC San Diego, was among the first to raise this comparison. On November 21, 2024, Dai tweeted his “unpopular opinion,” noting that Solana was repeating Ethereum’s experiences: “Increase in fees signals a start to global congestion… Rise in min fees leads to exodus of apps and users.” Dai now says he has been vindicated. “As I predicted, Solana is following Eth’s…
