496 Billion Transactions: Solana Celebrates Sixth Anniversary With Massive Growth

Solana is marking the sixth anniversary of its genesis block today, March 16. Solana was created in 2018 by Toly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal; however, the network was launched in March 2020 by Solana Labs, with its first block created on March 16 2020. The Solana network has seen major growth since this date.

Solana's official X handle highlighted the milestone of Solana's sixth anniversary in a recent tweet, highlighting progress made on the network in the last six years.

Solana's network has never been stronger, the Solana team wrote: "Happy 6th birthday Solana fam. They said quit. The builders stayed. They said it's dead. The code persisted. They said move on. The network's never been stronger.Just one more hard quarter."

The Solana team highlighted growth metrics in the last six years, which included 496 billion total transactions, $3.3 trillion in trading volume and $17.4 billion in stablecoins on-chain. The network also saw $1.7 billion in tokenized RWAs.

Solana founder Toly Yakovenko reacted to the milestone in a recent tweet, describing it as "six years of perfection."

Solana ETFs in spotlight

U.S. exchange-traded funds related to Solana ($SOL) are drawing investors' interest. According to Bloomberg analysts: "Early Solana ETF demand is being driven largely by industry-native capital rather than broader institutional adoption."

About 49% of assets in Solana spot ETFs could be identified through 13F filings as of Dec. 31, a regulatory disclosure required for large institutional investment managers. Investment advisers had the most reported holdings, with about $270 million in exposure. Hedge funds followed with about $186 million.

According to SoSoValue data, Solana ETFs have attracted a cumulative $968 million in net inflows, reflecting demand. At the time of writing, $SOL was up 7.36% in the last 24 hours to $94 and up 10% weekly.