Solayer (LAYER)

Overview

Solayer is a blockchain project that began with restaking on Solana and later expanded into its own high-performance network, called InfiniSVM or Solayer Chain. Its token, LAYER, gives holders a role in decisions about the project’s direction. Solayer also offers other assets with different purposes: sSOL represents staked SOL, while sUSD is a dollar-focused token that earns yield from tokenized U.S. Treasury bills. Understanding those differences makes the wider project easier to follow. (solayer.org)

Solayer’s central idea is to give applications more room to operate. Its original restaking system helps Solana applications gain access to network capacity. InfiniSVM takes a second approach: it uses specialized hardware and parallel processing to handle large amounts of activity on a separate, Solana-compatible chain. Together, these systems aim to support applications that need frequent, fast transactions, such as payments and on-chain financial tools. (solayer.org)

History & Team

From restaking to a new chain

Solayer launched its restaking work in May 2024. In August of that year, it announced a $12 million funding round led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC. Binance Labs, now known as YZi Labs, also announced an investment in the project. Solayer formed a foundation to support research and network development, then introduced LAYER in 2025. The token was distributed through a community sale and a program for eligible early users and partners. (solayer.org)

Jason Li and Rachel Chu are identified as Solayer co-founders. Li has spoken publicly about the project’s engineering work, while Chu has described its move from restaking toward hardware-accelerated blockchain infrastructure. Solayer opened an InfiniSVM developer network in May 2025 and made its mainnet alpha publicly accessible to builders in December 2025. “Alpha” describes an early stage in which the team is still developing core network systems. (solayer.org)

Technology & How It Works

Restaking and application capacity

Staking means committing tokens to support a blockchain’s operations. Restaking puts already-staked assets to work in an additional system. On Solayer, users can deposit SOL or supported liquid-staking tokens and receive sSOL, a transferable token representing their position. They can then delegate that position within Solayer’s restaking system. Because sSOL can be held or used in other supported applications, users have a more flexible way to manage staked assets. (solayer-labs.gitbook.io)

Solayer’s original design focuses on stake-weighted quality of service. In simple terms, stake helps determine how much access an application has to Solana’s transaction-processing capacity. Think of a busy road: an application with more capacity reserved has a better chance of getting its traffic through. Solayer coordinates stakers, validators, and applications so that delegated stake can support this arrangement. It also describes separately validated services that can use restaked assets for economic support. (solayer.org)

InfiniSVM and faster execution

InfiniSVM is compatible with the Solana Virtual Machine, the system used to run Solana programs. That compatibility lets developers bring familiar tools and code to Solayer Chain. The network divides tasks such as checking signatures, scheduling transactions, and storing data among specialized systems. It also uses InfiniBand and remote direct memory access, or RDMA, to move information quickly between machines. Parallel execution allows work on multiple transactions to proceed at once when their data does not conflict. (docs.solayer.org)

Solayer reported sustained throughput above 330,000 transactions per second on its developer network, along with roughly 400-millisecond finality. These are developer-network results, rather than a fixed speed for every application. The project’s longer-term design target is more than one million transactions per second. Solayer Chain also uses SOL to pay transaction fees, an important distinction when considering LAYER’s role. (solayer.org)

Tokenomics & Utility

Supply and distribution

Solayer’s published distribution sets out one billion LAYER tokens across four groups. Community and ecosystem activities receive 51.23%, core contributors and advisers receive 17.11%, investors receive 16.66%, and the Solayer Foundation receives 15%. Within the community allocation are funds for development, incentives, an early-user distribution, and the Emerald Card community sale. These percentages describe the original allocation, not how many tokens are available to use at a particular time. (solayer.org)

The release schedules differ by group. The foundation and broader ecosystem allocations vest over four years. Team members and advisers have a one-year initial lockup followed by three years of gradual release; investors have a one-year initial lockup followed by two years of gradual release. This structure spreads much of the original distribution over time. (solayer.org)

Governance and network incentives

LAYER holders can take part in governance votes conducted through Realms. The project’s first approved proposal, SIP-1, set a plan for future proof-of-stake issuance: an initial annual rate of 8%, declining by 15% each year until it reaches a 2% floor. Solayer said this issuance would begin only after the relevant mainnet staking system went live. Its staking documentation still describes the staking program as pre-launch, so the approved schedule and an operating rewards program are distinct. (solayer.org)

Solayer describes LAYER as the token intended for network staking and verifier incentives. For now, its clearest established use is governance. SOL is used for gas on InfiniSVM, meaning users pay network transaction fees in SOL rather than LAYER. Solayer’s separate sSOL token serves the restaking system; owning LAYER and holding a restaked SOL position are different activities. (docs.solayer.org)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

Assets, applications, and payments

Solayer brings several products together. sSOL gives holders a transferable position connected to SOL staking and restaking. sUSD provides a yield-bearing dollar-focused asset backed by tokenized U.S. Treasury bills. Solayer has described uses for these assets in decentralized finance, including liquidity pools and other financial applications. Its sBridge is designed to move assets and information between Solana-compatible networks. (solayer.org)

The project also offers Solayer Pay, a card product for spending stablecoins at Visa-enabled merchants. This adds a payment use case alongside the on-chain assets. For developers, Solayer’s stated focus is on applications that benefit from rapid processing, particularly decentralized finance, consumer products, payments, and systems that use AI to carry out blockchain transactions. (solayer.org)

In January 2026, Solayer announced a $35 million initiative to support applications built on InfiniSVM. It named projects working on automated trading, decentralized exchange infrastructure, and tokenized financial assets among the early teams developing on the network. These efforts show how Solayer is trying to build demand for its technology as well as the technology itself. (solayer.org)

Advantages & Challenges

What the design offers

Solayer’s main advantage is the link between familiar Solana development tools and a network built for heavy transaction activity. Its restaking system gives applications another way to obtain processing capacity, while InfiniSVM provides a separate place to build programs that need rapid responses. The project’s payment product and on-chain assets also give developers existing parts to work with when creating financial applications. (solayer.org)

The challenge is bringing these parts together at scale. Developer-network benchmarks describe performance under testing conditions; everyday use depends on the applications and network systems running together. Solayer’s mainnet alpha remains an early stage of development, and its documentation describes LAYER staking as pre-launch. The project also asks readers to keep several related assets straight: LAYER for governance, SOL for gas, sSOL for a staked position, and sUSD for the Treasury-backed product. (solayer.org)

Where to Buy & Wallets

LAYER is available on Coinbase and Binance. Exchange access and supported payment methods vary by location. Coinbase identifies LAYER as a Solana-network asset, so a withdrawal should use the network and deposit details displayed by the receiving wallet or platform. (coinbase.com)

Solana-compatible wallets such as Phantom, Solflare, and Backpack can connect through wallet tools described in Solayer’s documentation. Nightly has native Solayer Chain support. The wallet setup matters because holding a token on Solana and using an asset on Solayer Chain involve different networks, even though both use Solana-compatible technology. (docs.solayer.org)

Regulatory & Compliance

Rules for Solayer’s products depend on the activity and jurisdiction. In the United States, financial rules can apply to businesses that exchange or transmit virtual currency, while securities analysis examines the features of a crypto asset and the circumstances of its sale. In the European Union, MiCA sets authorization requirements for crypto-asset service providers and separate requirements for certain stablecoin issuers. Those frameworks can affect exchanges, payment services, and dollar-focused tokens in different ways. (fincen.gov)

Shariah analysis also calls for separating Solayer’s products. sUSD earns returns from U.S. Treasury bills, whose interest-based income conflicts with the Islamic finance prohibition on riba. LAYER’s stated governance function is different from receiving sUSD’s Treasury yield. A halal assessment of LAYER would therefore examine the token’s own uses and its relationship to the wider project, rather than treat every Solayer asset as the same financial product. (solayer.org)

Future Outlook

Solayer’s development path centers on expanding InfiniSVM beyond its early mainnet stage and attracting applications that make use of its speed. Its ecosystem fund and developer program support that goal, while the approved staking plan sets out a possible future role for LAYER in network incentives. Whether the network’s design reaches its longer-term performance target will become clearer as more applications are built and used. (solayer.org)

Summary

Solayer has grown from a Solana restaking protocol into a broader set of blockchain, asset, and payment products. LAYER connects that ecosystem through governance, with network staking described as a later step. The project’s defining approach is to combine Solana-compatible software with specialized hardware, while offering applications tools for staking, stablecoin use, and payments. (solayer.org)