Solayer

Solayer is a crypto project that began in 2024 as a restaking protocol on Solana and now builds its own blockchain, called Solayer Chain or InfiniSVM. The chain runs Solana-style programs on specialised hardware and targets one million transactions per second. Its mainnet is still in an alpha stage, which opened on 11 December 2025.

Solayer also runs four consumer products. sSOL is a liquid staking token for SOL. sUSD is a dollar stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury Bills. Solayer Pay is a Visa card for spending stablecoins. Margin Trade is a perpetual futures exchange. The LAYER token governs the project.

How Solayer works: the InfiniSVM chain and hardware acceleration

Solayer Chain is its own blockchain, separate from Solana. It runs the same kind of programs as Solana, using the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM). Its speed comes from hardware. One machine does not do every job. The work is split across a group of machines joined by very fast links. Solayer's docs say the goal is more than one million transactions per second.

The speed Solayer has shown so far is lower. In its mainnet alpha post of 11 December 2025, Solayer said its test network had passed 330,000 transactions per second. The same post told users to "expect occasional downtime" while the team keeps changing how the chain works.

The hardware ideas come from high-speed trading firms. Solayer's docs name two of them, RDMA and InfiniBand. Both let servers read each other's memory directly, which skips most of the usual network delay.

Solayer Chain agrees on blocks in a different way from Solana. Solayer's consensus docs describe one sequencer that orders transactions and proposes blocks. A set of provers then re-runs the work and votes. A block is final once 51% of the vote accepts it.

If you know Solana, this will feel more concentrated. On Solana, many independent validators take turns making blocks. On Solayer Chain, one sequencer leads at a time, with backups that take over if it fails.

You move assets between Solana and Solayer Chain through sBridge, the project's own bridge. The Block reported in January 2026 that SOL pays the gas fees on the alpha mainnet.

sSOL staking and restaking on Solayer

sSOL is Solayer's liquid staking token. You deposit SOL in the Solayer app and receive sSOL, which rises in value against SOL as staking rewards build up. You can hold sSOL, use it in Solana DeFi, or swap it back. The stake sits with Solayer's own Solana validator, which the project calls the Mega Validator.

Solayer's native staking docs say the validator charges 0% commission. They also say it passes all MEV rewards to stakers. MEV rewards are the tips traders pay to have their transactions placed first. The data widgets on this page show the live figures.

Getting out takes time. Solayer's unstaking guide describes a cooldown that lasts until the next Solana epoch, which can be up to two days. Only then can you withdraw your SOL. The guide lists no instant unstake option. The fast way out is to sell sSOL on a DEX at the market price.

Restaking is what Solayer was first known for. The idea comes from EigenLayer on Ethereum: use staked SOL a second time. Solayer calls its version an endoAVS. You delegate sSOL to a Solana app, and that stake helps the app get its transactions into blocks faster. It works because Solana validators give more network room to connections backed by more stake.

The docs still describe this delegation. They do not name the apps that use it, and they do not publish what delegators earn. Solayer's own docs now call sSOL "a liquid staking token" first. Treat the extra restaking yield as unproven until Solayer shows those numbers.

Solayer Pay card: fees, countries and how the former Emerald Card works

Solayer Pay is a Visa card that spends USDC from your Solayer account. It works anywhere Visa is accepted, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. It was first called the Emerald Card. Everyone must pass identity checks (KYC) before a card is issued. Solayer's website reports more than 45,000 cardholders.

The Solayer Pay FAQ lists these costs:

Here is what that means in practice. Say you load $100 and spend it all in euros. The top-up and the payment fee together cost you about $2.35, before the yearly fee.

You get a virtual card once KYC clears, which the FAQ says takes three to five business days. A physical card arrived on 27 May 2026. You need the physical card to take cash out at an ATM.

The card is not open to everyone. The FAQ rules out people in 17 U.S. states, among them Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Oregon and Washington. It also lists many restricted countries. Check the eligibility page in Solayer's docs before you pay the fee.

sUSD: the Treasury-backed yield stablecoin

sUSD is Solayer's dollar stablecoin. It is backed by U.S. Treasury Bills, which are short-term loans to the U.S. government. The interest on those bills is passed to holders. Your sUSD balance grows on its own in your wallet. Solayer's docs point to OpenEden as the partner behind the Treasury Bill product.

Solayer's own pages disagree on the yield. The sUSD docs say about 4-5% a year. The sUSD product page advertises 9.5% and does not say where the extra comes from. The docs tie the lower figure to Treasury Bills alone. Ask what else is behind any higher number before you rely on it.

You mint sUSD by asking for a quote. You lock USDC and request sUSD. A liquidity provider takes the USDC and hands wrapped Treasury Bills to the protocol. The protocol then mints your sUSD. To redeem, the same steps run in reverse.

sUSD is not open to everyone. Solayer's eligibility page bars people located in the United States, South Korea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. The product page lists sUSD on Solana, Base and Solayer Chain.

Solayer Margin Trade: perpetual futures on crypto, commodities and an equity index

Margin Trade is Solayer's perpetual futures exchange. A perpetual is a contract that tracks a price and never expires. It lets you bet on a price going up or down with borrowed money. Solayer announced Margin Trade on 28 May 2026. It opened with crypto markets, gold, silver and oil. It also listed MT500, an index that follows the broad U.S. stock market.

The selling point is one margin account across all of those markets. Solayer's website says Margin Trade uses an order book, where buyers and sellers post prices and get matched, as on a stock exchange. The site also lists single-stock markets such as NVDA-USD and TSLA-USD next to BTC, ETH and SOL. We covered the launch in Solayer Launches Margin Trade.

Solayer's public docs had no Margin Trade section when we checked on 9 October 2026. That means the fees, leverage limits and liquidation rules are not written down there. Check them in the app before you trade.

Who Solayer is for

Solayer suits three kinds of user, and each comes with a limit.

SOL holders who want a liquid staking token from a zero-commission validator can use sSOL. The constraint is concentration: your stake sits with one validator run by one team, and a normal exit takes up to two days.

Stablecoin holders outside the excluded regions can use Solayer Pay and sUSD together, earning Treasury yield on dollars and spending them by card. You need to pass KYC, pay $20 a year, and accept fees of roughly 2% on foreign spending.

Developers who need very fast settlement, such as trading apps, can build on Solayer Chain. Solayer backs this with a $35 million ecosystem fund announced on 20 January 2026. The chain is in alpha, so expect downtime and a small ecosystem.

Solayer is a poor fit if you want the most decentralised place to stake SOL, or if you live in the United States and want sUSD.

Is Solayer safe? Audits, multisig control and risks

Solayer's Solana programs have been audited, but its newer products have no public audits listed. The audits page shows five reports, all from 2024. OtterSec reviewed the token metadata in April 2024 and the restaking program in July 2024. Halborn reviewed the endoAVS program and the pool in August 2024, and the sUSD program in October 2024.

No report is listed for Solayer Chain, the sBridge bridge, Margin Trade or Solayer Pay. Those are the parts of Solayer that have changed most since 2024.

Program upgrades are controlled by a multisig, a wallet that needs several people to approve a change. Solayer's multisig page says the pool manager program needs three of five signers. Two keys belong to the Solayer core team. The other three are held by Joseph Lallouz of Bison Trails, Michael Repetny of Marinade MNDE$0.026-4.4% and Robert Chen of OtterSec. The team cannot push an upgrade alone, but it needs only one outside signer to do so. The docs give no multisig details for the sSOL, endoAVS or sUSD programs.

Other risks to weigh:

• Solayer Chain orders transactions through one sequencer at a time, and its mainnet is an alpha that the team says will have downtime.
• sBridge depends on a group of off-chain guardians who sign transfers. The docs give five of seven as an example threshold but do not say how many guardians run in production or who operates them. Withdrawals to Solana above a cap are queued for six hours.
• Solayer Pay's custody model is unclear. The overview page says there are "no centralized custodians", while the security page describes hot and cold wallets with multi-signature controls, which is how a custodian stores funds.
• sUSD depends on a third party's Treasury Bill product and on liquidity providers to redeem it.
• LAYER staking on Solayer Chain is not live. The docs describe it as pre-launch on the test network.

Solayer vs Jito restaking, and other staking alternatives

Solayer and Jito both offer restaking on Solana, and they aim at different things. Solayer points restaked SOL at Solana apps that want their transactions to land faster. Jito Restaking is a general toolkit. It supports any SPL token, and each service sets its own rewards and its own slashing rules. Slashing means losing part of your stake as a penalty. Jito also issues JitoSOL, its own liquid staking token.

Pick by what you want from the token. sSOL is the simpler product: one token, one validator, and staking yield with MEV passed on. Jito's restaking vaults suit you if you want to choose which services your stake secures. You then have to judge the slashing terms of each one.

If you do not want restaking, plain staking is the main alternative. You can delegate SOL to any validator from your own wallet. You can also hold a liquid staking token backed by many validators. Solana Compass, which publishes this page, runs its own validator and a liquid staking token called compassSOL. That means we compete with sSOL for stake. You can compare validators by commission and performance or see how we stake SOL before you choose.

LAYER token: supply, unlocks and what it does

LAYER is Solayer's governance token. There will never be more than one billion of them. Holders vote on upgrades and on other big decisions for the project. Solayer's tokenomics page lists two more uses as "future": paying gas fees on Solayer Chain, and staking to help run it. So LAYER does not pay for transactions on the chain yet.

The supply is split four ways:

About 22% of the supply was in circulation when LAYER launched in 2025, per the tokenomics page. That included an airdrop to early users and a community sale tied to the card. Binance also gave 3% of the supply to its own users through its HODLer Airdrop, per Binance Academy.

The rest unlocks over time on the schedule above. Each unlock adds to the number of tokens that can be sold.

Solayer Labs team, funding and history

Solayer Labs is the company behind Solayer. Rachel Chu is a co-founder. The company raised a $12 million seed round led by Polychain Capital, The Block reported in August 2024. The report described the firm as based in San Francisco.

Hack VC, Race Capital and Binance Labs also took part in that round. Anatoly Yakovenko, who co-founded Solana, put money in at an earlier stage. Joshua Sum leads product, as Solayer said when it launched Margin Trade.

Solayer has changed shape fast:

• 2024: it starts as a restaking protocol on Solana.
• January 2025: it says it will build its own fast chain.
• 2025: it launches the LAYER token and the card, and opens a test network in May.
• December 2025: the Solayer Chain alpha mainnet opens.
• January 2026: it sets up a $35 million fund for apps on the chain.
• May 2026: it adds the physical card and Margin Trade.

One thing to watch is how much Solayer says in public. When we checked on 9 October 2026, the newest post on its blog was the fund news from 20 January 2026. The website and docs have kept changing since then.