Solana Transaction Limit Increased by 3.3x, But Network Throughput Not Affected

Solana (SOL) has increased the maximum data capacity per transaction from 1232 bytes to 4096 bytes, representing a 3.3x expansion. However, this change does not mean network throughput or SOL price will rise by the same proportion.

The Solana Foundation announced that v1 transaction format became active at 10 AM KST on May 15th with mainnet epoch 1035. The update is based on SIMD-0296 and SIMD-0385, allowing continued use of legacy and v0 transaction formats. This follows earlier reports about the planned mainnet implementation of the v1 limit increase.

The key focus is expanding data and instruction capacity per transaction rather than improving processing speed. Previously, large transactions like zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proof), multi-signature, and on-chain signing required splitting into multiple transactions. Now they can be handled as single atomic transactions, where all operations succeed or fail together.

However, v1 is not more efficient for all transaction types. It no longer supports address lookup tables (ALT) used in v0, requiring direct address recording in transactions. For transactions with many accounts, v0 may still use smaller data volumes through ALT references.

Developers and infrastructure operators must update systems reading and indexing transactions to support v1. The Solana Foundation advises specifying maximum transaction version 1 for RPC and block subscription features, while compute units and priority fees should be read from transaction settings rather than the ComputeBudget instruction.

Solana's existing transaction volume is already high. Blockworks Research reported Solana's non-voting transactions reached a quarterly record of 10.1 billion in Q1 2026, followed by 9.8 billion in Q2 (second-highest quarter on record). Non-voting transactions exclude validator consensus votes.

The update does not directly increase transaction volume or network throughput. It's an architectural change to reduce constraints for large transactions like ZK proofs and institutional multi-signatures. Transaction fees remain unchanged, with base fee at 5000 lamports per signature and potential priority fees based on compute units.

DefiLlama reported Solana's 24-hour chain revenue at approximately $85,000 (about ₩11.56 million) and application revenue at around $519,000 (about ₩70.58 million), though these figures don't reflect v1 activation effects.

The Solana community notes that v1's impact varies by transaction type. While beneficial for ZK proofs and complex transactions, it may not always be more efficient than v0 for address-heavy transactions using ALT. Success will ultimately depend on whether applications actually increase usage of the expanded capacity rather than just the transaction size itself.