Companies Using Solana in 2025

What companies use Solana? The source draft identifies payment, commerce, stablecoin, DeFi, NFT, gaming, infrastructure, and wallet companies with documented Solana-related products or integrations through 2025.

2025 adoption scope: A company may use Solana for one product or settlement workflow without moving its entire business onto the network. Integration status, usage, and company metrics should be confirmed through current official sources.

Updated for 2025

Several major companies use the Solana blockchain network for payments, digital asset infrastructure, and financial applications, including Visa, PayPal, Shopify, Circle, Magic Eden, Jupiter Exchange, and Phantom. Solana is a high-speed blockchain network designed for applications that require fast, low-cost transactions at scale.

These companies fall into two distinct groups: major enterprises that integrated Solana into existing products (Visa, PayPal, Shopify), and native Web3 companies built on Solana from the ground up (Jupiter Exchange, Magic Eden, Phantom, Raydium). Here is a quick overview of the businesses using Solana and why:

• Visa: settled USDC stablecoin payments on Solana in September 2023, replacing a portion of traditional fiat settlement
• PayPal: launched its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana in May 2024, citing throughput and cost advantages
• Shopify: integrated Solana Pay in 2022, enabling millions of merchants to accept SOL and USDC at checkout
• Circle: natively issues USDC (a US dollar-backed stablecoin) directly on the Solana blockchain
• Jupiter Exchange: routes trades across multiple Solana liquidity sources as a DEX aggregator
• Magic Eden: an NFT marketplace that began on Solana and later expanded to other networks
• Phantom: a crypto wallet supporting Solana; the source draft reports tens of millions of users

The sections below break down each company by sector, with specific use cases, adoption dates, and the reasons each organization chose Solana over alternatives.

What Companies Use Solana? Quick Facts

• Large enterprise example by revenue: Visa (Fortune 500, approximately $32 billion in annual revenue), which settled USDC payments on Solana in September 2023
• Most recent major adoption: PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana in May 2024
• Common use case sectors: payments, decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT marketplaces, and blockchain gaming
• Solana's theoretical throughput: 65,000+ transactions per second (TPS), with transaction fees under $0.01
• Solana mainnet launched: March 2020, developed by Solana Labs
• Native ecosystem scale: thousands of protocols and projects operating on Solana as of 2025
• DeFi ecosystem: Solana's DeFi protocols held billions of dollars in total value locked (TVL) as of early 2025, according to DeFiLlama

In This Guide

• What Is Solana? A Brief Overview
• Major Enterprise Companies Using Solana
• DeFi Companies and Protocols Built on Solana
• NFT Companies and Marketplaces on Solana
• Gaming and GameFi Companies Building on Solana
• Infrastructure and Wallet Companies Supporting the Solana Ecosystem
• Why Do Companies Choose Solana?
• What This Means For You
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Solana? A Brief Overview

Solana is a high-speed, open-source blockchain network designed to process payments, run financial applications, host NFT marketplaces, and support gaming economies using its native token, SOL. It is built on blockchain technology: a distributed digital ledger that records transactions across a network of computers without any central authority controlling it.

Unlike traditional centralized databases controlled by a single company, a blockchain distributes transaction records across thousands of computers simultaneously, making it accessible to anyone globally without a central gatekeeper. This structure is what allows organizations like Visa to settle payments with counterparties directly, rather than routing through multiple bank intermediaries.

Unlike Bitcoin, which functions primarily as a digital currency, Solana is a programmable blockchain platform built for applications. It serves a similar purpose to Ethereum but is engineered for higher throughput and lower transaction costs.

Solana was co-founded in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former Qualcomm engineer who invented a timing mechanism called Proof of History (PoH) that enables Solana's speed advantage. Solana Labs, co-founded by Yakovenko and Greg Fitzgerald, develops the core protocol. The Solana Foundation, a separate non-profit organization, funds ecosystem grants, developer programs, and education initiatives. The Solana mainnet launched in March 2020.

Solana's documented specifications include theoretical throughput of 65,000+ transactions per second (TPS), transaction costs averaging fractions of a cent, and block finality of approximately 400 milliseconds. On Solana, smart contracts (self-executing code that runs automatically when specified conditions are met) are called "programs" and are written primarily in the Rust programming language.

Solana is one infrastructure layer used by Web3 applications, the broader category of decentralized applications where users own their data and digital assets rather than surrendering control to centralized platforms. The company adoption covered below spans both traditional enterprises that have integrated Solana and the native Web3 companies built entirely on its network.

Companies Using Solana: Visa, PayPal, Shopify, and Circle

The biggest companies using Solana include Visa, PayPal, Shopify, and Circle, each of which made specific, dated commitments to Solana-based payment and financial infrastructure between 2022 and 2024. Among Fortune 500 companies, Visa and PayPal have made the most significant public commitments to Solana. Solana's enterprise adoption accelerated following a difficult period in late 2022, when the collapse of the FTX exchange damaged the network's reputation. FTX had been a major backer of the Solana ecosystem, but the enterprise commitments that followed, including Visa's September 2023 settlement pilot and PayPal's May 2024 stablecoin deployment, demonstrate that Solana's network performed independently of FTX's fate, and that major corporations continued to evaluate and adopt the chain on its technical merits.

Visa

Visa Inc., the global payments technology company and Fortune 500 member (ranked approximately #153 by revenue, with approximately $32 billion in annual revenue for fiscal year 2023), piloted on-chain USDC stablecoin settlement on Solana in September 2023. In this pilot, Visa used Solana's blockchain to settle payments between its acquiring bank partners, replacing a portion of traditional fiat-based settlement with on-chain transactions denominated in USDC (USD Coin, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar).

Visa chose Solana for this pilot for three specific reasons. First, Solana's block finality of approximately 400 milliseconds delivers near-instant settlement, compared to the one-to-five business day windows typical of traditional banking rails such as SWIFT. Second, transaction fees on Solana average fractions of a cent, compared to the basis-point fees and intermediary costs of correspondent banking. Third, Circle natively issues USDC directly on Solana's blockchain, meaning USDC transactions on Solana are faster and more reliable than bridged versions transferred from other networks. For a deeper look at how Solana compares to Ethereum on these metrics, see our Solana vs. Ethereum comparison.

This was described as a pilot program at the time of announcement. Readers conducting due diligence should verify the current status of Visa's Solana settlement activities against Visa's official communications.

PayPal

PayPal Holdings, Inc., the global digital payments company and Fortune 500 member serving hundreds of millions of users worldwide, launched PayPal USD (PYUSD), its own stablecoin (a digital currency pegged 1:1 to the US dollar), on the Solana blockchain in May 2024. PayPal had initially launched PYUSD on Ethereum in August 2023, then expanded to Solana nine months later.

PayPal's public statements cited Solana's high throughput and lower transaction costs as reasons for expanding PYUSD to Solana, with the goal of enabling faster and more cost-efficient consumer payment experiences at scale. The distinction matters: PayPal is using Solana as the infrastructure layer for PYUSD specifically. PayPal's core payment platform has not migrated to Solana. For more on how USDC and PYUSD stablecoins work in practice, see this USDC stablecoin guide.

The May 2024 Solana deployment marked one of the most significant mainstream adoption events in Solana's history, given PayPal's scale and the regulatory credibility that comes with a licensed financial company issuing a regulated stablecoin on a public blockchain.

Shopify

Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP), a global e-commerce platform used by millions of merchants across more than 175 countries, integrated Solana Pay in 2022, enabling merchants on its platform to accept SOL and USDC payments directly at checkout.

Solana Pay is an open-source payments framework built on Solana that allows merchants to accept crypto payments near-instantly at near-zero cost. The mechanics are practical: a merchant displays a QR code or payment link at checkout; the customer pays with SOL or USDC from their Solana wallet; settlement occurs on-chain in seconds. This enables merchants to bypass traditional credit card interchange fees, which typically range from 2 to 3 percent per transaction, and receive payments from a global customer base without geographic restrictions on card acceptance.

The integration is at the platform level. Shopify enabled Solana Pay as an available payment option, meaning individual merchants can choose to activate it for their storefront.

Circle (USDC)

Circle, the fintech company that issues USD Coin (USDC, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar), natively issues USDC on the Solana blockchain. Native issuance means Circle mints USDC directly on Solana rather than bridging tokens from Ethereum. That distinction matters because natively issued USDC avoids some cross-chain bridge dependencies; performance and reliability still depend on the implementation.

Circle's decision to natively issue USDC on Solana is the foundational infrastructure that makes Visa's settlement pilot and PayPal's PYUSD deployment possible. Both companies' payment use cases depend on the availability of a regulated, US dollar-backed stablecoin that settles natively and cheaply on Solana. Circle is the company; USDC is the stablecoin product. They should not be conflated with Coinbase, which co-founded the Centre Consortium that originally created USDC but operates separately from Circle's current USDC management.

DeFi Companies and Protocols Built on Solana

Decentralized finance (DeFi) refers to financial services built on blockchain without banks or brokers as intermediaries. It covers trading and lending, and it represents an active sector of company and protocol activity on Solana. As of early 2025, Solana's DeFi protocols held several billion dollars in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama, placing it among higher-TVL networks in that 2025 source snapshot.

DeFi protocols choose Solana because sub-cent transaction fees make high-frequency trading and micro-transactions economically viable. Those are use cases that become unprofitable on Ethereum's base layer, where transaction fees regularly reach several dollars per transaction during periods of network congestion.

DeFi protocols operate as decentralized exchanges (DEXes), trading platforms with no central company controlling them, rather than centralized exchanges (CEXes) like Coinbase or Binance, which are regulated companies that custody user funds. Both types of exchanges support Solana, but the DeFi ecosystem covered here operates as open protocols on-chain.

Jupiter Exchange

Jupiter Exchange is a Solana decentralized exchange aggregator and a protocol that routes trades across multiple liquidity sources. A DEX aggregator routes trades across multiple decentralized exchanges simultaneously to compare available routes and quoted prices for a given token swap. Think of it the way Google Flights aggregates fares across airlines to surface the most competitive option, rather than routing you through a single carrier.

Jupiter has grown beyond pure aggregation into a broader DeFi platform. Its product suite now includes Jupiter Pro (advanced trading interface), Jupiter Perpetuals (a decentralized leveraged trading venue), and the JLP liquidity pool that powers its perpetuals market. This expansion reflects Jupiter's position as core DeFi infrastructure rather than a single-function protocol.

Jupiter is a DEX aggregator, not a DEX itself, a distinction that matters when evaluating its role in the ecosystem.

Beyond Jupiter, Solana's DeFi sector includes several other protocols that together form a deep liquidity and financial services layer:

Raydium is a Solana automated market maker (AMMs, protocols that use liquidity pools rather than traditional order books to enable token trading) and decentralized exchanges. Raydium connects directly to the Solana order book and serves as a key liquidity source for other DeFi protocols operating on the network.

Orca is a user-friendly decentralized exchange on Solana, known for its Whirlpools: concentrated liquidity pools that allow liquidity providers to allocate capital within specific price ranges, earning more capital-efficient returns than traditional liquidity pool designs.

Marinade Finance is a Solana liquid staking protocol. It allows users to stake SOL tokens to help secure the Solana network while receiving a liquid token called mSOL in return. That mSOL can then be used across DeFi applications simultaneously. Liquid staking refers to the ability to earn staking rewards while keeping tokens actively usable rather than locked.

Beyond these four, Kamino Finance provides leveraged liquidity and lending services, and Drift Protocol operates a decentralized perpetuals exchange on Solana. Both represent the ecosystem's depth across lending and derivatives verticals.

NFT Companies and Marketplaces on Solana

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are unique digital assets verified on blockchain, representing ownership of items like digital art, music, collectibles, or in-game assets. Solana is an active NFT blockchain in the source period, and it is home to Magic Eden, a multi-chain NFT marketplace.

The source draft cites two reasons NFT companies selected Solana. Minting an NFT on Solana costs fractions of a cent, compared to several dollars to hundreds of dollars on Ethereum during periods of high gas fees. Solana's near-instant confirmation times also enabled better user experiences during high-demand NFT drop events, where thousands of buyers attempt to purchase simultaneously. That was a scenario where Ethereum's slower throughput created failures and user frustration during the 2021 to 2022 NFT boom period.

The broader NFT market contracted sharply from its 2021 to 2022 peaks, and Solana's NFT sector was not immune to that pullback. However, key companies including Magic Eden and Metaplex sustained operations through the downturn and continued developing their platforms.

Magic Eden

Magic Eden, founded in 2021, is a Solana NFT marketplace and one of the highest-volume NFT trading venues across all blockchains. It functions as a marketplace where users trade and discover NFT collections, analogous to the role eBay plays for physical goods: it provides a platform for the exchange rather than being the items themselves.

Magic Eden grew rapidly after its founding to become an active Solana NFT trading venue in the source period. The company subsequently expanded to a multi-chain model, adding support for Ethereum, Polygon, and Bitcoin Ordinals. Solana remains its original platform and the foundation on which it built its market position.

Metaplex is the NFT protocol standard on Solana, providing the smart contract infrastructure and developer tools that power the vast majority of Solana NFTs. Most NFT companies building on Solana, including Magic Eden, rely on Metaplex's token standard for creating and managing NFT collections. That is a different technical standard from Ethereum's ERC-721.

Tensor is a professional NFT trading platform on Solana, favored by active traders for its execution speed and advanced order types including limit orders on NFT collections.

NFT companies choosing between Ethereum and Solana faced a clear economic calculation for high-volume consumer applications. Solana's minting costs and confirmation speeds made it possible to operate NFT platforms at a price point accessible to a broad user base, rather than only to buyers willing to pay significant gas fees per transaction.

Gaming and GameFi Companies Building on Solana

Solana's sub-cent transaction fees and fast state updates make it well-suited for gaming applications. Star Atlas, a space exploration massively multiplayer online game (MMO), is among the most ambitious blockchain games built natively on any network. Three characteristics drive Solana's appeal for game developers: fast state updates support real-time gameplay interactions that would lag on slower networks; sub-cent micro-transactions make in-game item economies viable at scale; and NFT-based in-game asset ownership gives players verifiable, tradeable property rights over their digital items via the Metaplex standard.

Star Atlas

Star Atlas is a space-exploration MMO built entirely on Solana, aiming for production values comparable to major commercial video games, with all in-game assets (ships, land, equipment, and crew) represented as NFTs that players own and can trade on secondary markets. Players participate in a player-driven economy where virtual assets have on-chain value independent of any central game company's decisions.

Star Atlas represents one of the more ambitious gaming projects deployed on a public blockchain. Development is ongoing as of 2025, and the team has released playable components while continuing to build toward the full game vision. Readers evaluating Star Atlas should assess its current development state against its roadmap independently, as blockchain game timelines can shift.

StepN is a move-to-earn fitness application built on Solana, where users earn token rewards by walking, jogging, or running using NFT-based digital sneakers that they own. StepN saw peak adoption in 2022 before the broader GameFi market contraction and has since evolved its tokenomics model as the sector matured.

Beyond Star Atlas and StepN, dozens of GameFi projects have deployed on Solana specifically for its transaction economics, making it one of the more active blockchain gaming networks as of 2025.

Infrastructure and Wallet Companies Supporting the Solana Ecosystem

Beyond consumer-facing applications, Solana's developer ecosystem is supported by wallets, remote procedure call (RPC) providers, and development frameworks, including Phantom Wallet, Helius, Triton, and the Anchor smart contract framework. These infrastructure companies are the tools developers evaluate when deciding whether an ecosystem is mature enough to build on.

Phantom is a non-custodial crypto wallet supporting Solana: a browser extension and mobile application that lets users store SOL, interact with DeFi protocols, trade NFTs, and connect to decentralized applications. Non-custodial means users hold their own private keys rather than trusting a central company with custody of their assets. With tens of millions of users, Phantom serves as one gateway through which individuals access the Solana ecosystem. Phantom has since expanded to support Ethereum and other networks, indicating cross-chain infrastructure maturity. Users interested in staking SOL through wallet-based staking can access that functionality through Phantom and similar wallets.

Helius is a Solana RPC and API provider. It gives developers programmatic access to the Solana blockchain without requiring them to operate their own validator infrastructure, substantially reducing the cost and complexity of building production applications.

Triton is an RPC infrastructure provider that supports Solana developers with scalable node access for production-grade applications requiring high reliability and throughput.

Anchor is an open-source smart contract development framework for Solana that simplifies writing and deploying Solana programs in the Rust programming language. It reduces the boilerplate and potential for error that developers face when building directly against Solana's native SDK.

Taken together, these infrastructure providers show that a developer building on Solana in 2025 has access to production-ready tooling without needing to build foundational infrastructure from scratch. That is a meaningful signal of ecosystem maturity for anyone evaluating Solana as a build platform.

Why Do Companies Choose Solana? Speed, Cost, and Ecosystem Depth

Companies choose Solana for six core reasons:

1. Transaction speed: 65,000+ theoretical TPS and approximately 400ms block finality, enabling near-instant settlement
2. Transaction cost: Sub-cent fees per transaction, making high-volume payments and micro-transactions economically viable
3. Scalability at Layer 1: High throughput without the added complexity of Layer 2 scaling solutions like Polygon or Arbitrum
4. Native stablecoin infrastructure: Circle natively issues USDC on Solana, providing the regulated payment layer that enterprise companies like Visa and PayPal require
5. Developer tooling: Anchor framework, Helius RPC, Triton node infrastructure, and Solana Foundation grants support a mature build environment
6. Proven enterprise adoption: Visa, PayPal, and Shopify have deployed production applications on Solana, providing institutional credibility signals for organizations evaluating the network

Transaction Speed and Proof of History

Solana's speed advantage originates in Proof of History (PoH), a timing mechanism invented by Anatoly Yakovenko. PoH functions as a cryptographic clock: it creates a verifiable, time-stamped historical record of events that allows the network to process transactions without requiring nodes to pause and agree on timing before proceeding. PoH is not a standalone consensus mechanism; it works alongside Proof of Stake (PoS), with PoH handling the sequencing problem that traditionally slows blockchain networks and PoS handling validator selection and finality.

The business outcome of this architecture is approximately 400-millisecond block finality. That speed is why Visa chose Solana for USDC settlement rather than accepting the one-to-five business day windows that traditional SWIFT-based correspondent banking requires. Settlement that takes milliseconds rather than days changes the economics of cross-border payment infrastructure in ways that are difficult to achieve on slower networks.

Transaction Cost

Sub-cent transaction costs (typically fractions of a cent per transaction) create a different economic environment than Ethereum's variable gas fees, which can range from a few dollars to over $50 per transaction during periods of network congestion. This cost gap is why NFT minting on Solana costs fractions of a cent while Ethereum minting during peak periods cost buyers tens to hundreds of dollars. It is also why DeFi protocols like Jupiter can operate high-frequency trade routing that would be uneconomical on Ethereum's base layer.

Traditional payment rails like SWIFT involve multiple intermediary banks, settlement delays of one to five business days, and fees ranging from 1 to 3 percent per transaction. Solana enables near-instant settlement (under one second), fees under $0.01 per transaction, and programmable payment logic through smart contract programs that automate the conditions under which settlement occurs. This is the business case Visa cited when piloting Solana for payment settlement infrastructure: not a theoretical advantage but a measurable difference in settlement time and cost.

Developer Ecosystem and Tooling

Solana attracts developers through a combination of performance economics and mature tooling. The Rust programming language, while more demanding than Ethereum's Solidity, delivers high performance and memory safety that suits latency-sensitive applications. The Anchor framework abstracts much of Rust's complexity, making Solana program development accessible to builders coming from other ecosystems. Helius and Triton provide enterprise-grade RPC infrastructure that removes the need for development teams to run their own validator nodes. The Solana Foundation's active grants program funds early-stage projects, contributing to an expanding developer community that now numbers in the thousands of active contributors.

How Solana Compares to Ethereum

Ethereum is a large smart-contract ecosystem by market capitalization, with a larger DeFi ecosystem and developer community than Solana. The comparison below addresses the specific dimensions relevant to corporate adoption decisions. It is a use-case analysis, not a declaration of overall superiority.

Ethereum's Layer 2 solutions (Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism) have narrowed some of the performance gap for specific use cases, offering lower fees and faster finality than Ethereum's base layer. Ethereum remains the blockchain with a larger company count and developer base in the source snapshot. Solana's advantages are most concentrated in throughput-sensitive, cost-sensitive applications: payment settlement, high-frequency DeFi trading, and consumer NFT minting. For a full breakdown of how these networks compare across additional metrics, see the Solana vs. Ethereum comparison.

Solana has experienced network outages, primarily during 2021 and 2022, that temporarily halted transaction processing for hours at a time. The network has since implemented stability improvements, and the period from 2023 onward has seen enterprise deployments from Visa and PayPal, along with Shopify's payment integration, proceed without the network disruptions that characterized the earlier period. Organizations evaluating Solana for production use should assess its current reliability record independently alongside its performance advantages.

Implications for Market Observers, Developers, and Businesses

For investors tracking Solana's adoption trajectory: SOL's market performance is not determined by corporate adoption alone, and factors including macroeconomic conditions, network performance, competitive dynamics, and broader digital asset market conditions all play significant roles. That said, the enterprise commitments from Visa, PayPal, and Shopify represent documented integration events with named programs, specific dates, and stated technical rationale, not speculative partnership announcements. Investors should conduct their own research and consult qualified financial advisors before making any investment decisions.

For developers who want to evaluate Solana as a build platform: the Solana developer documentation is an official technical starting point for onboarding, and the Solana Foundation's ecosystem resources cover active grant opportunities and developer support programs. The ecosystem depth described in this guide, including production DeFi protocols managing billions in TVL, wallet infrastructure with tens of millions of users, and enterprise-grade RPC providers, indicates a mature environment with available liquidity, integration partners, and user wallet penetration.

For businesses evaluating Solana for organizational use: Visa's settlement pilot, PayPal's PYUSD deployment, and Shopify's payment integration provide proof-of-concept evidence that Solana can handle enterprise payment and financial use cases at scale. Each organization evaluating Solana should assess its own technical requirements, regulatory obligations, internal risk tolerance, and business fit independently. Consult qualified technical, legal, and financial professionals for decisions of this nature.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, or legal advice.

Frequently Asked Questions: What Companies Use Solana?

What is the biggest company using Solana?

By global revenue and scale, Visa is one large traditional company using Solana for a defined settlement workflow. Visa is a Fortune 500 company with approximately $32 billion in annual revenue (FY2023) and began using Solana for USDC payment settlement in September 2023. PayPal, another Fortune 500 company with approximately $29 billion in annual revenue, launched its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana in May 2024.

Does Visa use Solana?

Yes. Visa began settling USDC stablecoin payments on Solana in September 2023. Visa worked with Circle, the issuer of USDC, to pilot on-chain settlement between acquiring bank partners using Solana's blockchain. The pilot demonstrated that Solana's near-instant finality (approximately 400 milliseconds) and sub-cent transaction costs could serve enterprise payment settlement needs at a fraction of traditional rails' cost and time.

Does PayPal use Solana?

Yes. PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin on the Solana blockchain in May 2024, expanding beyond its initial Ethereum launch in August 2023. PayPal cited Solana's high throughput and lower transaction costs as key reasons for the expansion. PayPal is using Solana as the infrastructure for PYUSD specifically; its core payment platform has not migrated to Solana.

Is Solana used by major companies?

Yes. Major companies including Visa, PayPal, and Shopify have integrated Solana into their payment and financial products. Visa uses Solana for USDC stablecoin settlement between acquiring partners. PayPal deployed its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana in 2024. Shopify enabled Solana Pay in 2022, allowing millions of merchants to accept SOL and USDC payments directly at checkout.

What DeFi projects are on Solana?

Major decentralized finance (DeFi) projects on Solana include: Jupiter Exchange (DEX aggregator routing trades across available liquidity sources), Raydium (automated market maker and decentralized exchange), Orca (user-friendly DEX with concentrated liquidity pools), Marinade Finance (liquid staking protocol issuing mSOL), Kamino Finance (leveraged liquidity and lending), and Drift Protocol (decentralized perpetuals exchange). Solana's DeFi ecosystem manages several billion dollars in total value locked as of early 2025, per DeFiLlama.

What is Solana used for?

Solana is used for payment settlement (Visa, PayPal), stablecoin infrastructure (USDC, PYUSD), decentralized trading (Jupiter Exchange, Raydium, Orca), NFT marketplaces (Magic Eden), blockchain gaming (Star Atlas, StepN), liquid staking (Marinade Finance), and e-commerce payments (Shopify via Solana Pay). Both enterprise companies and native Web3 protocols use Solana for applications that require fast, low-cost transaction processing.

What is the Solana ecosystem?

Solana's ecosystem refers to the network of companies, protocols, applications, and infrastructure built on or integrated with the Solana blockchain. It spans DeFi (Jupiter, Raydium, Marinade Finance, Orca), NFT markets (Magic Eden, Metaplex, Tensor), gaming (Star Atlas, StepN), payments (Solana Pay, Visa's USDC settlement, PayPal PYUSD), infrastructure (Phantom Wallet, Helius, Triton), and enterprise finance (Circle's native USDC issuance). Thousands of projects operate within this ecosystem as of 2025.

Who created Solana?

Solana was created by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former engineer at Qualcomm and Dropbox, who published the Solana whitepaper in 2017. Yakovenko co-founded Solana Labs with Greg Fitzgerald and several other engineers. The Solana mainnet launched in March 2020. The Solana Foundation, a separate non-profit organization, supports the ecosystem through grants and developer programs.

Is Solana better than Ethereum for companies?

Whether Solana is better than Ethereum for a specific company depends on the use case. For high-throughput, cost-sensitive applications like payment settlement and consumer-facing DeFi, Solana offers significant speed and cost advantages over Ethereum's base layer. Ethereum maintains a larger developer community, a larger absolute DeFi TVL, and a more established enterprise track record. Both remain widely used blockchain platforms, and the right choice depends on specific technical and business requirements.

How many companies use Solana?

The Solana ecosystem includes thousands of protocols and projects operating on the network as of 2025, according to the Solana Foundation's ecosystem resources. Among enterprise companies, Visa, PayPal, and Shopify have made the most notable public commitments. Hundreds of native Web3 companies, including DeFi protocols, NFT platforms, gaming projects, and infrastructure providers, operate on Solana full-time.

Is Solana good for business?

Solana offers documented business advantages including fast transaction settlement (approximately 400-millisecond finality), sub-cent transaction fees, and proof-of-concept from enterprises including Visa and PayPal. Businesses should also weigh Solana's history of network outages in 2021 to 2022 and the need to evaluate regulatory compliance independently for their specific use cases. For high-throughput, cost-sensitive applications in payments and financial services, Solana has demonstrated enterprise-grade viability in documented deployments.

Is Solana still growing after the FTX collapse?

Yes. Solana's network continued operating through the FTX collapse in November 2022, development activity accelerated throughout 2023 and 2024, and enterprise adoptions from Visa (September 2023), PayPal (May 2024), and Shopify (ongoing since 2022) all proceeded after FTX's failure. These adoption events involved companies that had no operational dependency on FTX, demonstrating that Solana's network viability is independent of any single ecosystem backer.

This article describes companies that have adopted the Solana blockchain network. It is not investment advice and does not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any cryptocurrency or digital asset. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile and involve significant risk.

Related Solana Outlook and Adoption Guides

• Solana institutional adoption
• why Solana became popular
• Solana corporate treasuries

For separate market context around SOL, readers can review the SOL price page or SOL/USDT spot market. A corporate integration does not imply endorsement of SOL or predict market performance.