ckSOL Goes Live as DFINITY Says the Internet Computer Now Speaks Solana

ckSOL, a token on the Internet Computer (ICP) that DFINITY says is backed 1:1 by SOL, is live on mainnet. Its minter, ledger and index were installed by governance vote on 12 October 2026. Two days later the DFINITY Foundation announced that "The Internet Computer now speaks Solana": ICP apps "can read from and write to" Solana SOL$104.08-3.0% directly, and DeFi apps can hold SOL "next to BTC, ETH and ICP". DFINITY's line is "No bridge required." The more useful question for SOL holders is where the custody sits instead, and DFINITY's own design documents answer it.

ckSOL minter, ledger and index installed by NNS vote on 12 October 2026

ckSOL went live through three proposals to the Network Nervous System (NNS), the Internet Computer's on-chain governance system. All three were created on 9 October 2026 and executed at 09:19 UTC on 12 October.

Proposal 144313 installed the ckSOL minter, the program that takes in SOL and issues ckSOL. About 95.6% of total NNS voting power voted yes, according to the proposal's tally on the IC public API. Proposal 144314 installed the ckSOL ledger, with nine decimals like SOL, a 500-lamport transfer fee and the minter set as the only account that can create tokens. Proposal 144315 added the ckSOL index canister, which records the token's transaction history.

The read-and-write tooling itself is older: The Defiant reported DFINITY's first Solana integration in June 2025, and that release had no SOL-backed token.

How ckSOL holds SOL: deposits, withdrawals and threshold Ed25519 keys

Each ckSOL is "backed by exactly 1 SOL held by the ckSOL minter canister," according to the ckSOL repository. A canister is an Internet Computer smart contract, and this one controls ordinary Solana addresses.

In DFINITY's deposit and withdrawal flows, a user gets a deposit address tied to their ICP account, sends SOL to it from any Solana wallet and asks the minter to check. Once the transfer is finalized on Solana, the minter sweeps the SOL into its main account and mints the matching ckSOL. Withdrawing runs in reverse: the minter burns the ckSOL, then signs and sends a Solana transfer to the address the user names.

The signing is what lets DFINITY say "no bridge". Solana accounts use Ed25519 keys, and the Internet Computer can produce Ed25519 signatures with a threshold key: the nodes of an ICP subnet each hold a share and sign together, "without reconstructing the private key," according to DFINITY's Solana integration docs. No single node, and no outside relayer, ever holds a complete key. Withdrawals also use five durable nonce accounts, a Solana feature that lets a signed transaction stay valid and be submitted only once, so a retried withdrawal cannot pay out twice.

The ckSOL design document sets a 0.001 SOL withdrawal fee, a 0.02 SOL minimum deposit and a 0.002 SOL minimum withdrawal, alongside the ledger's 0.0000005 SOL (500 lamport) transfer fee.

How ICP canisters read Solana through the SOL RPC canister

The minter learns what happened on Solana through the SOL RPC canister, a shared ICP service that sends each request out to several Solana RPC providers and passes back an answer only when they agree. DFINITY's docs name Alchemy, Ankr, Chainstack, dRPC, Helius hSOL$123.78-3.2% and PublicNode as providers, and say the NNS controls which providers are registered. The ckSOL design document lists "3 out of 4 provider consensus" among its trust assumptions.

Where the trust sits in DFINITY's "no bridge" design

ckSOL has no separate bridge operator, multisig or guardian set signing withdrawals, which is the basis for DFINITY's "no bridge" claim. The SOL still has a custodian, though. In our reading of the design document, a ckSOL holder relies on three things: the ICP subnet that holds the threshold key behaves honestly, the minter's code is correct, and enough of the RPC providers report Solana's state truthfully. The NNS can also upgrade the minter by vote. Users swap trust in a bridge's key holders for trust in ICP's subnet, code and governance.

The design does include a safety valve. If the outcome of a sweep contradicts what the minter expected, the design document says "nothing is minted" and the deposits are quarantined until a minter upgrade resolves them. The ckSOL documentation we reviewed does not reference a third-party security audit.

Liquidium, ICPSwap and MULTI/DEX named as possible ckSOL integrators

DFINITY's post named three ICP apps, Liquidium, MULTI/DEX and ICPSwap, that "can integrate SOL natively". It did not say any of them had shipped ckSOL support. Liquidium, a cross-chain lending app, replied that the launch was "interesting for a cross-chain integration" and that "We might have something for you soon." The announcement gave no figure for how much SOL the minter holds.

What ckSOL means for SOL holders and Solana developers

For SOL holders, ckSOL is a route into ICP DeFi apps as they add support, with an ICP canister as custodian instead of a bridge company. The SOL itself sits in the minter's Solana addresses until withdrawn, so Solana sees the deposits and withdrawals while ckSOL trading happens on the Internet Computer.

For Solana developers, the read and write tools are the broader piece: any ICP canister can hold its own Solana address and sign Solana transactions with it, with no server holding a private key. Whether ckSOL draws real SOL depends on what Liquidium, ICPSwap and MULTI/DEX ship next.