During the recent crypto market sell-off caused by Trump’s tariffs on China, the crypto market witnessed significant declines. The market saw over $19 billion in liquidations, marking one of the largest single-day losses in crypto history. As Bitcoin fell below the $105,000 level, major altcoins also saw steep declines.
Solana processes high volume despite market stress
The crypto sell-off was a real stress test for major blockchains revealed key differences between Solana and Ethereum under pressure.
Remarkably, Solana proved resilient, processing around 1,200 to 1,300 transactions per second even during the height of the chaos, with block confirmations taking just 400 to 450 milliseconds. Fees briefly rose to 20 to 30 cents, but quickly fell back to below 1 cent.
The network remained stable throughout, without major delays or congestion, underscoring Solana’s ability to perform under extreme market stress.
Ethereum’s network is slowing down and rates are rising
However, Ethereum struggled during the market turmoil, processing only about 13 to 15 transactions per second on the base tier, with block times stretching to 14 to 15 seconds. Gas fees shot above $500 per transaction at peak congestion, effectively pricing out most users and freezing wallets and DeFi operations.
While Solana remained fully functional, demonstrating that recent improvements such as Firedancer, QUIC and stake-weighted QoS have improved the network’s performance.
“When users are too expensive and transactions cannot be executed, the network might as well be offline. Under high loads, blockchains must remain accessible, affordable and reliable,‘, said the Ministry of Finance’s DefiDevCorp.
No problems with Solana
Crypto researcher Aylo also shared his experiences during the market crash. He had assets and DeFi positions open on both Solana and Ethereum and reported zero issues with Solana. In contrast, he noted that Ethereum, on the other hand, was unusable due to its high fees during the market crash, and wallet services like Rabby also went bankrupt.
He stated that Solana has proven to be the most reliable and performing chain under heavy loads, although this is not fully reflected in the current valuation.
This shows how Solana’s high-throughput design handles extreme market stress better than Ethereum’s more security-focused base layer.
Solana’s resilience is under pressure
While Ethereum’s scaling solutions like Arbitrum and Base work well in normal times, the mainnet can choke during moments of market panic. However, Solana, built from the ground up for speed, can handle stress smoothly.
With over twenty months of uptime since early 2023, this proves that under pressure, raw speed and reliability can rival even Ethereum’s massive, decentralized ecosystem.
If these trends continue, Solana’s reliability during market chaos could make it more attractive to traders, developers, and DeFi protocols than Ethereum.
While both networks have their own strengths, with Ethereum standing out for its decentralization and long track record, while Solana is built for speed and low transaction fees, the recent market crash highlighted how reliability and performance under stress become key factors to consider.
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