Solana’s ultra-low fees challenge Base, BNB and Polygon in high-volume DeFi

Solana (SOL) trading chart showing a downward trend from approximately $84 to current price of $84.28 USDT, down 2.87% on the 30-minute timeframe. The chart displays RSI strategy indicators with multiple “RsiLE +2” and “RsiSE -2” signals marked along the declining price action, indicating technical analysis entry and exit points during this bearish movement. SourceL Tradingview.

Solanas fee line remained consistently near the bottom of the logarithmic-scale chart, indicating a structurally low-fee environment rather than occasional cheap transactions. The network achieved this through high throughput and parallelized execution, which allowed it to absorb activity spikes without translating demand into higher per-transaction costs, according to network documentation.

Median fees reflect what typical users pay rather than edge cases during congestion periods. Solanas position indicated that most transactions continued to clear at low cost even during periods of elevated usage, the data showed.

Networks built on rollup stacks inherited some cost sensitivity from settlement layers, particularly during periods of higher calldata demand, according to blockchain analysts. For applications requiring frequent user interactions, such as payments, gaming, or on-chain trading, fee predictability remained a significant factor alongside transaction speed.

Solana‘s low median fee profile reinforced its positioning as an execution-focused chain optimized for high-volume activity, according to industry observers. Developers building consumer-facing applications often selected environments where costs remained low at scale, while chains like Base offered tighter integration with Ethereum’s tooling and liquidity in exchange for slightly higher fees.

The ability to maintain low median fees without sacrificing throughput represented a key differentiator as usage continued to grow across blockchain ecosystems, according to network performance analysts.