Solana withstands record 6 Tbps DDoS attack

For years, the main criticism levelled by institutional investors at Solana was its fragility: the network would break down under pressure. However, this week the network marked a turning point, quietly absorbing a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack that peaked at around 6 terabits per second (Tbps).

According to data from the Pipe distribution network, confirmed by co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, the onslaught ranks among the largest in the history of the Internet, surpassed only by the records set by giants such as Google Cloud and Cloudflare.

The most remarkable aspect, however, is not the size of the attack, but the lack of visible impact: unlike in previous years, there was no downtime and no significant increase in fees.

Advanced Defences and Validator-Consolidation

Michael Hubbard, interim CEO of Sol Strategies, has confirmed the magnitude of the event, attributing the network's survival to customised defences. These include a new high reliability (HA) system that supports validator clusters with automatic failure detection.

In addition, the move to the QUIC protocol and the implementation of local commission markets allowed spam traffic to be filtered directly at the point of entry.

This resilience comes amidst a profound transformation of the validator landscape. By 2025, the number of active operators had dropped by more than 35 per cent, in part due to the Solana Foundation's new policy of reducing support for small validators.

The result is a network increasingly run by industry professionals such as Galaxy Digital, Binance Staking and Figment, capable of defending enterprise-grade infrastructure.

An infrastructure for Global Finance

With an annual trading volume of approximately $1.6 trillion and 98 million monthly active users, Solana is no longer an experimental chain, but a critical financial binary. An attack of this magnitude suggests that sophisticated actors now see the network as an essential component of Internet hydraulics.

Although the concentration of power among the top 20 validators (who control about a third of the stake) fuels criticism of centralisation, it is undeniable that this structure has made it possible to withstand an onslaught that would have brought down less structured projects.

While waiting for the Alpenglow upgrade, designed to reopen the door to smaller operators, Solana has chosen to sacrifice breadth to build a network ready for 'internet-scale warfare'.

For investors, this flawless defence provides tangible proof that Solana is finally achieving the reliability standards required by traditional payment systems.