Solana Struggles: Record 75% Of User TXs Are Failing… Or Are They?

Authored by Tom Mitchelhill via CoinTelegraph.com,

The Solana network appears to be struggling to keep up with a ravenous demand for memecoins, with data showing roughly 75% of transactions on the network currently failing.

Roughly three-quarters of all transactions on the Solana network have been failing amid a deluge of activity brought by the recent memecoin mania on Solana; however, proponents say the data is being widely misinterpreted. 

Dune Analytics data shows that on April 4, just over 75% of all “non-vote” Solana transactions failed, the highest failure rate on record.

75.4% of non-vote transactions on Solana have failed. Source: Dune Analytics

The uptick has been paralleled by a recent uproar from Solana users on social media, complaining of failed transactions and degraded user experience.

In an April 4 post to X, pseudonymous trader Altcoin Sherpa said that while he still believed Solana would cement itself as the blockchain network for retail adoption, he noted that the current user experience was currently less than ideal.

“As much as I think that SOL is the chain for retail this cycle — the experience is f—ing brutal lately.”

Or maybe it’s bot spam 

However, in an April 4 post to X, vocal Solana proponent and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz took issue with the claim that 75% of transactions were failing, noting that the vast majority of failed non-vote transactions were simply “bot spam.

“This is usually not a big problem for users because your wallet will simulate the [transaction] and let you know that it will not work beforehand anyway,” he said.

Mumtaz claimed that the failed transactions chart was “not a good way of assessing user impact as most users don’t make it there to begin [with].”

“About 95% of that entire chart is just bots failing arbitrage attempts,” he added.

Additionally, Mumtaz explained that because much of this spam activity occurs before the scheduling process, increasing transaction priority fees won’t help and that “increasing it above a certain median” will see users “waste money.”

Source: Mert Mumtaz

He added that it was unlikely that the upcoming 1.18 Solana network upgrade would fix these issues, hinting that user experience on Solana could remain degraded for some time.

“Networking patches are what’s required, and those are rolling out soon.”

Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko took to social media to express his frustration at the process of improving congestion bugs on the network. 

“Dealing with congestion bugs sucks so much more than total liveness failure. The latter is one and done, bug is identified and patched and chain continues. The former has to go through the full release and test pipeline. Shipping fast is impossible,” wrote Yakovenko in an April 5 post to X. 

The price of Solana’s SOL has fallen around 3% in the last week, stumbling slightly after a 45% rally in the last month. Its recent weekly drawdown has seen it fall back to being the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, per CoinGecko data.

SOL currently commands a total value of $81 billion, trailing behind Binance’s BNB at $89 billion.