On August 5, 2025, Solana Labs announced the launch of the mainnet upgrade v1.18. The network transaction processing speed was increased to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), a 12% increase compared to before the upgrade. The average latency was reduced to 0.48 seconds, and the median Gas fee was stabilized at 0.00021 Canadian dollars. This version integrates a zero-knowledge proof coprocessor, reducing the cost for developers to build privacy Dapps by 35% and increasing the efficiency of on-chain data verification by 70%. The technological breakthrough was simultaneously reflected in the market performance. The price of SOL rose by 5.3% within 24 hours to 149.35 Canadian dollars, and its market capitalization climbed to a historical peak of 73.4 billion Canadian dollars.
The key progress in the ecosystem focuses on the optimization of the sol incinerator destruction mechanism. On-chain data shows that the destruction volume today reached 91,200 SOL (approximately 13.6 million Canadian dollars), and the annual cumulative destruction volume exceeded the total supply by 5.7%. The deflationary effect pushed the annualized inflation rate down to 3.1%. After the launch of the Burn Boost protocol, users voluntarily destroyed SOL to exchange for NFT rewards. Within 48 hours, the number of participating addresses soared by 280,000, and the peak daily destruction volume reached 230% of the standard value. Statistical models show that if the current rate is maintained, the annual circulation volume will net decrease by 120 million Canadian dollars, and the deflation rate will increase to 1.8 times that of the baseline scenario.
A major breakthrough in the regulatory field comes from the approval of Solana spot ETF by the Canadian CSA. The product launched by Purpose Investments (code PSOL) has a management fee rate of 0.35%. The trading volume on the first day exceeded 42 million Canadian dollars, and institutional subscription accounted for 73%. The compliance framework requires that the underlying assets of ETFs adopt 100% cold storage, the custodian needs to pass SOC 2 Type II certification, and the security standard exceeds the 50% threshold of traditional financial products. In July 2025, Visa announced that it would adopt the Solana network to handle 15% of cross-border payment traffic, and the enterprise adoption rate increased by 40% within three months.
In terms of market dynamics, the total value locked (TVL) of Solana’s DeFi ecosystem exceeded 11.2 billion Canadian dollars, and the DEX trading volume in July reached 124 billion Canadian dollars, with its market share rising to 18%. The daily peak number of active addresses on the chain reached 2.58 million, setting a new record in the history of public chains. Among them, GameFi applications contributed 53% of the interaction volume. After the launch of the liquidity mining protocol Kamino V3, the average APY was 24.5%, attracting an inflow of 1.9 billion Canadian dollars. But beware of risk indicators: The frequency of MEV robot attacks has risen to 37 times per day. Although sol price usd reduces arbitrage space, the probability of attack success still remains 11%. Users need to deploy automatic slippage control tools (tolerance threshold setting < 1.5%) to ensure safety.