What is Solayer (LAYER)?

By CMC AI
29 January 2026 10:50PM (UTC+0)

TLDR

Solayer is a high-performance, hardware-accelerated blockchain built on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), designed to achieve extreme transaction speeds for real-time financial applications, with its LAYER token serving as the network's governance and utility core.

  1. A hardware-accelerated L1 blockchain targeting over 1 million transactions per second (TPS) via its InfiniSVM architecture.

  2. Evolved from Solana's first restaking platform into a standalone, infinitely scalable execution layer.

  3. Governed by the LAYER token, used for protocol upgrades, treasury management, and future network utilities.

Deep Dive

1. Vision & Core Technology

Solayer’s primary goal is to deliver Web2-like speed to Web3. Its core innovation is InfiniSVM, a hardware-accelerated blockchain architecture. It offloads key components to programmable chips and uses technologies like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) to target throughput above 330,000 TPS with sub-second finality, aiming to scale to over 1 million TPS. This design targets latency-sensitive use cases like high-frequency trading and real-time payments.

2. Evolution & Ecosystem Focus

The project originated as the first restaking platform on Solana, enhancing application performance through stake-weighted services. It has since pivoted to building its own high-speed Layer 1. To grow its ecosystem, Solayer Labs and the Solayer Foundation launched a $35 million ecosystem fund in January 2026, targeting sustainable, revenue-generating projects in DeFi, AI, and tokenized real-world assets.

3. The LAYER Token

LAYER is the native token of the Solayer network with a maximum supply of 1 billion. Its current primary utility is governance, allowing holders to vote on protocol upgrades and treasury management. Future utilities, subject to design, may include serving as the gas token for the InfiniSVM network and enabling staking for network security. The distribution heavily favors the community and ecosystem, with over 51% allocated for growth, developer programs, and incentives.

Conclusion

Solayer is fundamentally an ambitious infrastructure project betting that hardware acceleration and SVM compatibility can unlock a new tier of blockchain performance for real-time economies. Will its extreme throughput translate into durable, mainstream applications beyond speculative trading?

CMC AI can make mistakes. Not financial advice.