In the competition of Web3 infrastructure, the path dependence of "software expansion" has led to a double bottleneck of performance and practicality. Solayer takes "hardware accelerated Layer1" as its core positioning, breaks through technical constraints through the InfiniSVM architecture, and builds a three-in-one ecological closed loop of "performance-scenario-compliance" by combining the re-staking mechanism and the Emerald Card payment ecosystem. This article deeply analyzes its professional value from five dimensions: technical architecture, industry pain point solving, application landing, ecological synergy, and token value.
I. InfiniSVM: Hardware Acceleration-Driven Blockchain Performance Reconstruction
Solayer's core technology barrier lies in InfiniSVM (hardware-accelerated Solana virtual machine), which breaks through the "upper limit of software optimization" of traditional blockchains and achieves performance leaps through "hardware offloading + parallel architecture." The specific technical logic can be broken down into two points:
1. Hardware-Level Computing Power Offloading: The Efficiency Revolution from "General-Purpose Servers" to "Dedicated Chips"
Traditional blockchains (such as Solana, Ethereum) rely on general-purpose servers to process core tasks such as transaction verification and data transmission. Limited by operating system scheduling and memory IO bottlenecks, it is difficult to break through microsecond-level latency. InfiniSVM adopts InfiniBand (unlimited bandwidth technology) and RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) to offload the three modules of "transaction signature verification," "state synchronization," and "cross-chain data transmission" that consume high computing power to programmable dedicated chips (such as FPGA):
• InfiniBand: Through low-latency (<1 microsecond) and high-bandwidth (100Gbps+) hardware links, direct data interaction between verification nodes is realized, avoiding the transmission loss of the TCP/IP protocol;
• RDMA: Allows chips to directly access remote node memory without CPU intervention, increasing data transmission efficiency by 10-100 times and compressing transaction confirmation latency to milliseconds (actual measured minimum of 0.8 milliseconds), far exceeding Solana's current average latency of 1-3 seconds.
2. Multi-Execution Cluster: Parallel Processing Breaks the Performance Ceiling of "Single-Chain Serial"
Traditional blockchains adopt a "single-chain serial" processing mode. Even if sharding is introduced (such as Ethereum), cross-shard communication and coordination are still required, resulting in performance loss. InfiniSVM designs a multi-execution cluster architecture. By using a "transaction conflict detection algorithm," non-conflicting transactions (such as SOL transfers and sUSD exchanges from different users) are assigned to independent clusters for parallel processing. Each cluster can independently support 100,000+ TPS. Theoretically, "unlimited scalability" can be achieved through cluster expansion. The current test network has achieved 500,000+ TPS, with a target of 1 million+ TPS and 100Gbps bandwidth, which is 100 times higher than Solana's main network of 10,000 TPS.
From a technical value perspective, InfiniSVM is not a "simple TPS increase" but rather solves the "performance gap" between blockchain and traditional financial systems. When transaction latency is reduced to milliseconds and throughput matches the US stock market (peak of 100,000 transactions per second), "Web3 transformation of traditional financial scenarios" such as high-frequency quantitative trading, real-time cross-chain clearing, and large-scale RWA tokenization become possible.
II. Hardware Accelerated Layer1: Solving the Core Contradiction of DeFi Scaling and Institutional Entry
As the "pioneer of hardware-accelerated Layer1," Solayer's industry value lies in accurately solving two core contradictions of Web3: the efficiency and fairness balance of DeFi scaling, and the stability and compliance needs of institutional entry.
1. Empowering DeFi: Dual Guarantee of Shared Validator Network and Endogenous AVS Mechanism
Currently, DeFi faces a dilemma of "efficiency-decentralization": centralized exchange derivatives are fast, but sacrifice decentralization; Ethereum DeFi is decentralized, but its insufficient performance leads to high Gas fees and discourages small users. Solayer allows dApps to directly reuse Solana's decentralized validator set and InfiniSVM's high performance by sharing the validator network, reducing development and operation costs; at the same time, it launches an endogenous AVS (Application-Specific Validation System) to achieve a balance between fairness and efficiency through a "staking-weighted QoS (Quality of Service)" mechanism:
• Users who stake $LAYER or sSOL (liquid re-staking token) can obtain "transaction priority weight." The higher the staking amount, the higher the processing priority of transactions in InfiniSVM, which not only avoids the distorted rules of "high Gas fee jumping in line," but also improves ecological security through staking incentives;
• Taking Jupiter (Solana ecosystem's largest AMM) integration as an example, the transaction confirmation speed of sSOL users' liquidity mining on Jupiter has increased by 3 times, and Gas fees have decreased by 50%, promoting the sSOL re-staking TVL from $20 million at the beginning of its launch to $186 million, verifying the feasibility of DeFi scaling.
2. Attracting Institutions: Dual Endorsement of Hardware Stability and Compliant Assets
The core concerns of institutions about blockchain are "system stability" and "asset transparency": fluctuations in software architecture (such as on-chain congestion, forks) can lead to transaction uncertainty, while the "risk of explosions" of algorithmic stablecoins and some reserve stablecoins keep institutional funds away. Solayer breaks through in two aspects:
• Hardware-level stability: InfiniSVM's dedicated chip and fixed architecture make transaction latency and processing capacity predictable (measured 99.99% of transaction confirmation latency <5 milliseconds), which meets the compliance requirements of institutions for "system reliability";
• Compliant Asset Design: The sUSD stablecoin launched in cooperation with OpenEden is 100% backed by US short-term Treasury bonds (T-Bills). Users can query the proof of Treasury bond holdings in real-time through the on-chain interface. The annualized yield (APY) of 4% far exceeds traditional money market funds (0.2%-0.5%) and there is no risk of "algorithmic bottoming." As of August 2025, sUSD TVL reached $31 million, of which 23% came from traditional asset management institutions, becoming the core carrier for institutional funds to enter.
III. Commercial Implementation of InfiniSVM: From Technology Verification to Scenario Value Realization
The core value of high-performance technology lies in "scenario adaptability." With its characteristics of low latency, high concurrency, and cross-chain compatibility, InfiniSVM has realized value landing in three major commercial scenarios, all of which have quantifiable commercial benefits.
1. High-Frequency Quantitative Trading: "Institutional-Level Experience" in Decentralized Scenarios
High-frequency quantitative trading is extremely sensitive to latency (each millisecond of delay may result in a profit loss of 0.1%-0.5%), and the 1-3 second confirmation time of traditional blockchain makes it impossible to support this scenario. A large amount of quantitative funds are concentrated in centralized exchanges. InfiniSVM breaks this limitation through "zero latency + cross-chain compatibility":
• Quantitative strategies can use InfiniSVM's low-latency interface to read real-time market data from multiple chains such as Solana and BNB Chain, generate trading instructions in milliseconds, and support "SVM-to-SVM" seamless cross-chain (users do not need to switch wallets) to achieve "instant settlement of cross-chain arbitrage";
• Test data from a crypto quantitative institution shows that quantitative strategies based on InfiniSVM have an annualized rate of return that is 18%-22% higher than centralized exchanges. The core reason is "eliminating withdrawal delays and exchange fees (from 0.1% to 0.01%)". Currently, 3 quantitative institutions have connected to the test network and plan to officially launch in Q4 2025.
2. AI+DeFi Risk Control: "Credit Scoring Infrastructure" for Inclusive Finance
Traditional DeFi lending relies on "over-collateralization" (e.g., collateralizing $150 SOL to borrow $100 stablecoins). The core bottleneck is the "inability to assess user credit in real-time" - dispersed on-chain data, slow processing speeds, and difficulty for AI models to generate dynamic credit scores. InfiniSVM's high concurrency capabilities solve this problem:
• The AI system can use InfiniSVM to capture real-time multi-dimensional data such as users' sSOL staking amount, sUSD holding period, and Emerald Card spending records, and generate a "Solayer credit score" (full score of 1000) within 100 milliseconds;
• Users with credit scores above 700 can enjoy a "1.2x collateralization ratio" (collateralize $120 sSOL to borrow $100 sUSD), and those above 800 can apply for unsecured microloans up to $500, expanding the user coverage of DeFi lending by 3 times. Currently, 2 DeFi lending protocols (Solend, Mango Markets) have integrated this credit system, with user growth of 3200 during the testing period and a default rate controlled below 0.8%.
3. Cross-border Corporate Settlement: Dual Optimization of Cost and Efficiency
Traditional cross-border settlement for multinational companies faces the problem of "high cost and long cycle": it takes 1-3 days through the SWIFT system, with a handling fee of 1%-3%, and there are many intermediate links and low capital transparency. InfiniSVM's cross-chain compatibility and low-latency characteristics provide a new solution for enterprises:
• Enterprises can use the Solayer ecosystem to convert SOL on the Solana chain to USDT on the BNB Chain and complete cross-border payments in real-time. The entire process <10 seconds and the handling fee is reduced to below 0.1%;
• A cross-border e-commerce company in Southeast Asia (monthly cross-border settlement of $1.2 million) test shows that after accessing InfiniSVM, the monthly settlement cost has dropped from $36,000 to $1,200, the efficiency has increased by 99%, and it is planned to fully promote it in Q4 2025.
IV. Synergy between Emerald Card and InfiniSVM: Technological Dependence and Experience Upgrade in Payment Scenarios
Emerald Card, as the core carrier of Solayer linking "on-chain assets and offline consumption," its "real-time settlement + instant rewards" experience fully relies on the hardware performance support of InfiniSVM. The two form a deep synergy of "technology-scenario" and are difficult to be replicated by pure software blockchain.
1. Real-time Settlement: Exclusive Computing Power Guarantee of Hardware Clusters
The settlement process of traditional crypto payment cards needs to go through "on-chain asset locking → centralized gateway exchange → payment instruction transmission." If the blockchain performance is insufficient, "card swiping failure" and "delayed fund arrival" are prone to occur (the actual measured success rate of a certain EVM chain payment card is only 82%, and the average arrival time is 45 seconds). The settlement process of Emerald Card relies on InfiniSVM's payment-specific processing cluster:
• User card swiping instructions are directly routed to this cluster without queuing with other on-chain transactions. The cluster accesses the user's wallet assets in real-time through RDMA technology, and completes "asset locking → fiat currency exchange → payment confirmation" in milliseconds with a success rate of 99.9% and an average settlement time of 1.2 seconds;
• Even during peak consumption periods such as "Black Friday" and "Double 11" (100,000 users trading simultaneously), this cluster can still handle the demand through dynamic scaling without any lag or delay.
2. Instant Rewards: Hardware-level triggering mechanism of smart contracts
The "instant arrival" of the Emerald Rewards program (earn 0.01 $LAYER for every $1 spent) relies on InfiniSVM's "transaction-reward" synchronous processing capabilities:
• While completing payment settlement, InfiniSVM automatically triggers on-chain reward smart contracts and directly transfers $LAYER to the user's wallet through hardware-accelerated transaction channels without the need for third-party platform statistics or manual intervention. The reward arrival time is <10 seconds;
• Traditional crypto payment card reward distribution requires "merchant reconciliation → platform statistics → batch transfer", with a cycle of 3-7 days and the risk of "reward omissions" (a payment card user reported a reward arrival rate of only 91%).
The core barrier of this synergy lies in the "exclusive allocation of hardware computing power" - pure software blockchains cannot allocate exclusive computing power for payment scenarios and can only share resources with other transactions, resulting in experience fluctuations; while InfiniSVM realizes "scenario-based computing power scheduling" through the flexibility of the hardware architecture, becoming the core technology moat of Emerald Card.
V. Ecological Value and $LAYER Token: Governance, Incentives, and Equity in One
$LAYER, as the native token of the Solayer ecosystem, its value does not purely rely on "transaction speculation," but is deeply linked to the ecological development through the binding of "governance rights, incentive rights, and equity rights," forming a positive cycle of "user-ecosystem-token."
1. Governance Rights: The Core Carrier of Ecological Decision-Making
$LAYER holders have three major governance rights, which directly affect the direction of the ecosystem:
• Protocol upgrade voting: such as InfiniSVM's performance optimization plan, sUSD's reserve asset adjustments (such as whether to add low-risk assets other than short-term treasury bonds);
• Treasury Management Decisions: The use of funds from the Solayer Treasury (initial scale of $22.5 million financing + protocol fees) includes developer subsidies and ecological cooperation fund allocation;
• AVS admission review: Decide which dApps can access the shared validator network to ensure ecological security and compliance. As of August 2025, 3 protocol upgrade proposals have been passed through $LAYER governance voting, including InfiniSVM's cross-chain expansion plan.
2. Incentive Rights: The Core Driver of Ecological Growth
The total supply of $LAYER is 1 billion, of which 40% (400 million) is used for ecological incentives. The specific allocation includes:
• User incentives: Staking sSOL, using Emerald Card for consumption, and participating in DeFi mining can earn LAYER rewards. The current annualized reward rate for staking sSOL is 8%-10%, and Emerald Card users earn an average monthly reward of approximately 12 LAYER;
• Developer incentives: Teams developing dApps based on InfiniSVM can apply for $LAYER subsidies (up to $500,000 per project). Currently, 12 dApp teams have received subsidies, covering DeFi, RWA, and game fields.
3. Equity Rights: Potential Dividends from Ecological Revenue
As the ecosystem matures, $LAYER holders will enjoy two core equity rights:
• Protocol fee dividends: 30% of Solayer's re-staking fee (0.5%-1%) and sUSD management fee (0.2%/year) will be returned to holders in proportion to $LAYER holdings;
• Priority Subscription for Ecological Assets: LAYER holders can obtain priority subscription quotas for newly launched compliant assets in the Solayer ecosystem (such as RWA tokenized products). Currently, institutional-level large-amount subscriptions (over $1 million) of sUSD require holding 100,000 LAYER.
From a valuation perspective, the current $LAYER price ($0.55-$0.62) corresponds to a market value of $131 million-$157 million, while its ecological TVL reaches $350 million, and institutional funds (traditional funds in sUSD) continue to enter. The market value/TVL ratio (0.37-0.45) is lower than the industry average (DeFi infrastructure averages 0.6-0.8), and there is room for valuation repair.
Summary: Solayer's Industry Positioning and Long-Term Value
The core value of Solayer is that it is not "simply improving blockchain performance," but rather solves the triple contradiction of "performance-scenario-compliance" of Web3 infrastructure through the positioning of "hardware acceleration Layer1": breaking through performance bottlenecks with InfiniSVM, meeting the scaling and institutional needs of DeFi with shared validator networks and sUSD, realizing commercial landing with Emerald Card, and finally binding ecological value through $LAYER.
From the perspective of industry evolution, Web3 infrastructure is transitioning from "software optimization competition" to "hardware architecture competition." Solayer's InfiniSVM provides a reusable hardware acceleration path for the industry; from a commercial value perspective, its ecosystem has achieved a closed loop of "technology verification-scenario landing-institutional entry," and the fundamentals of $350 million TVL, 104,500 users, and a sUSD scale of 31 million provide support for the long-term value of $LAYER. In the future, as InfiniSVM's main network of 1 million TPS is implemented and cross-chain is extended to the Ethereum ecosystem, Solayer is expected to become a core player in Web3 financial infrastructure, and its technical logic and ecological model may become an industry benchmark. @Solayer #BuiltOnSolayer $LAYER
