Solana Just Solved Its Biggest Data Problem, Says Helius CEO
Helius says it has re-engineered how Solana’s historic information is saved and retrieved, introducing a brand new archival backend and an RPC technique that collapses in the present day’s multi-call workflows right into a single request.
CEO Mert Mumtaz framed the change in sweeping phrases: “in the present day, Solana adjustments ceaselessly… we’ve solved the largest information/RPC drawback that exists,” he wrote, arguing that the established order—historic queries hitting Google Bigtable—has been “sluggish,” “costly,” and “rigid.”
What This Means For Solana
Mumtaz highlighted the sensible ache level each Solana indexer or pockets developer is aware of: getting the “first tx for a Solana deal with with out looping again endlessly” and pulling the “most up-to-date 100 txs for an deal with” each require chaining calls and traversals that may balloon into “1000’s of RPC calls.” “Not anymore,” Mumtaz stated.
At the center of the discharge is a Helius-exclusive RPC technique, getTransactionsForHandle, backed by a distributed archival storage layer that the corporate claims is “1,000x sooner, extra versatile, and extra scalable.” Functionally, the strategy merges in the present day’s frequent two-step sample—getSignaturesForHandle to enumerate signatures, then getTransaction to hydrate particulars—into one name that may return absolutely decoded transactions, with bidirectional time ordering and vary filters by slot or timestamp.
Helius’ documentation spells out that it allows reverse search with out back-traversal and helps pagination tuned for big, lively accounts. The firm additionally emphasizes that this isn’t a core Solana RPC addition; it’s a proprietary extension accessible on Helius nodes, priced at 100 credit per request on Developer plans and above.
Performance claims span each the brand new technique and legacy endpoints, with Helius saying getBlock, getTransaction, and getSignaturesForHandle at the moment are “10x sooner,” whereas the archival system below the hood delivers the headline throughput enhancements for historic queries.
The framing is squarely geared toward eliminating Bigtable-bound latency spikes and decreasing name counts by “100x” alongside “10x decrease latency” and “1000x much less code.” Those assertions monitor with frequent developer complaints documented throughout Solana boards about sluggish historic hydration on busy addresses, however the onerous numbers listed below are Helius’ personal benchmarks.
The strategic context issues. Solana’s on-chain exercise continues to skew towards high-throughput shopper and funds use instances, which punish inefficient information entry patterns.
The launch landed the identical day the primary US spot Solana ETF went live on the NYSE—Bitwise’s BSOL. According to Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, BSOL recorded a quantity of $56 million on day one. “BSOL’s $56m is the MOST of any launch this yr.. More than XRPR, SSK, Ives and $MNU. And what’s wonderful is it seeded with $220m. It might have invested seed on Day One, which might have resulted in $280m-ish, can be much more than ETHA’s debut. Strong begin both method,” Balchunas wrote.
Another macro backdrop piece: Western Union introduced plans to introduce a dollar-backed stablecoin, USDPT, on Solana, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, with availability focused for the primary half of 2026.
At press time, SOL traded at $195.