Background Overview

Solana stands as one of the most widely used high-performance public blockchains today, earning strong support from developers thanks to its extremely fast transaction speeds and low transaction fees. With the rapid growth of DeFi, NFT, GameFi, and AI applications within its ecosystem, the original block capacity has approached its limits. This has occasionally led to network congestion and fee volatility. To address this, the Solana Foundation initiated and approved the SIMD-0256 proposal, which increases the block compute unit limit.

Upgrade Details

According to the official Solana Disclaimer, the Solana Foundation officially activated the SIMD-0256 proposal at the end of July 2025, launching with the 822nd epoch of the mainnet. This adjustment raises the number of Compute Units per block from 50 million to 60 million—a 20% increase. As a result, each block can now support more complex computations, including high-frequency trading, cross-chain operations, and on-chain AI inference.

Compute Units are analogous to Ethereum’s “gas.” They serve as the measurement for resources consumed during transaction and contract execution. By expanding block capacity, the network’s scalability improves and fees caused by congestion are reduced, providing a foundation for future, more sophisticated applications.

Current Price Performance

Chart: https://www.gate.com/trade/SOL_USDT

At the time of writing, Solana (SOL) is trading at approximately $192, up roughly 2.6% over the past 24 hours. The broader market views this upgrade as an important infrastructure upgrade, contributing to positive investor sentiment in the short term.

According to CoinMarketCap, SOL’s market capitalization has surpassed $100 billion, maintaining its status among the world’s top ten cryptocurrencies. Several research firms note that this upswing has technically broken through the pivotal $190 resistance level, indicating that if trading volume continues to grow, SOL could potentially reach the $200 level or higher.

Impact on Developers and the Ecosystem

Increasing block compute units makes more complex on-chain logic feasible. For instance, DeFi protocols can implement more advanced risk management strategies, GameFi projects can deliver richer in-game interactions, and AI projects can execute portions of model inference directly on-chain.

Solana’s core developers have indicated that, once this proposal matures, it may further accelerate SIMD-0286—which would increase the block compute unit limit to 100 million compute units—positioning the ecosystem for further growth.

Industry Outlook and Investment Recommendations

This upgrade is not only a performance boost for Solana, but also demonstrates the platform’s commitment to continuously improving its infrastructure and supporting developers for the long term. As network capacity expands, Solana is expected to attract more project deployments, driving further user adoption.

For individual investors, this may be an opportune time to monitor SOL closely. We encourage newcomers to employ a “dollar-cost averaging plus monitoring” strategy—regularly investing small amounts while tracking ecosystem developments, technology upgrades, and key governance proposals.