NEAR Protocol (NEAR) and Solana (SOL): a comparison
NEAR Protocol and Solana set side by side: how the quotes moved, how the protocols are built and what tasks each one was made for.
Specifications of NEAR and SOL
| NEAR Protocol (NEAR) | Solana (SOL) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.64 | $86.10 |
| Ticker | NEAR | SOL |
| Type | coin of its own network | coin of its own network |
| Launched | 2020 | 2020 |
| Built by | Illia Polosukhin, Alexander Skidanov | Anatoly Yakovenko |
| Consensus | Proof of Stake (Nightshade) | Proof of Stake + Proof of History |
| Privacy | transfers are public | transfers are public |
| In circulation | 1.31 B NEAR | 591.15 M SOL |
| Market cap | $4.78 B | $50.9 B |
| Rank by cap | #22 | #7 |
| Supply cap | — | no cap |
Source: CoinGecko, Nov 10, 2026 12:57. How these numbers are counted
Price movement: NEAR and SOL
The start of the period is taken as 100 for both prices: the chart shows the difference in movement, not the quotes themselves.
| Period | NEAR | SOL |
|---|---|---|
| 7 days | −6.15% | −5.92% |
| 30 days | −31.47% | −21.45% |
| 90 days | +124.11% | +13.37% |
The link between their daily moves over the quarter is 0.61 (they travel alike).
The tasks NEAR and SOL were made for
- Contracts and applicationsNEAR Protocol and Solana
How NEAR Protocol and Solana are built
How NEAR Protocol works
The Nightshade architecture is sharded: processing is spread across shards, and a block appears roughly once a second. An account can carry a human-readable name of the form name.near.
What NEAR Protocol is for
NEAR goes towards fees and data storage in the network, is staked to protect it and works in applications built on NEAR.
How Solana works
On top of Proof of Stake it runs Proof of History — a cryptographic clock that sets the order of transactions. A slot lasts about 400 milliseconds, and processing runs in parallel. The SPL standard is used for tokens.
What Solana is for
Network fees are paid in SOL, and the same coin is staked to secure the blockchain. Solana hosts decentralised exchanges, payment services, NFT marketplaces and dozens of well-known tokens.