Key notes
- Network metrics showed median transaction confirmations of 450 milliseconds and slot latency of 0 to 1 slot throughout the attack.
- Solana suffered three DDoS-related outages in 2021-2022, including a 17-hour shutdown in September 2021.
- The scale of the attacks is lower than the largest DDoS incidents of 2025, with Cloudflare reporting attenuated attacks exceeding 29 Tbps.
Solana
GROUND
$129.4
24h volatility:
2.7%
Market capitalization:
$72.80 billion
Flight. 24h:
$4.36 billion
absorbed a sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack peaking at around 6 terabits per second over several weeks without any network degradation, according to co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.
The attack occurred despite Solana’s history of DDoS-induced outages in 2021-2022.
Yakovenko revealed the attack on December 9 and described it as the worst active threat against the network, according to his X post.
Network timing is not affected, with location latency being zero everywhere. He called the situation optimistic and suggested that the attackers were spending about as much as the channel generates revenue just to send him traffic.
The median latency of 0 slots is the best breakpoint present. The 6 tbsp ddos is the worst. Come on man, stop it. It’s not easier to throw a token instead. pic.twitter.com/YPFInpkHUZ
— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) December 9, 2025
Infrastructure provider Pipe Network corroborated the performance claims, reporting that median transaction confirmations remained at around 450 milliseconds, with p90 confirmations below 700 milliseconds throughout the attack period.
Pipe Network noted that a 6 Tbps volumetric attack typically results in billions of packets per second directed at network infrastructure.
The ongoing DDoS attack against @solana is one of the most important in the history of the Internet.
A 6 Tbps volumetric attack results in billions of packets per second.
Under this type of load, you would normally expect increasing latency, missed slots, or confirmation delays.
Instead, the data shows:
•… pic.twitter.com/P601xSgHiE– Pipe Network (@pipenetwork) December 16, 2025
Years after the breakdown was criticized
The current attack stands in stark contrast to Solana’s experience in 2021-2022, when similar DDoS incidents caused prolonged network outages. An attack in May 2022 marked the seventh network outage that year, fueling criticism of the chain’s reliability.
An attack in September 2021 during a token sale event took the network offline for 17 hours. Further incidents followed in December 2021 and January 2022, raising questions about network centralization and architectural fragility.
Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz noted that the network has withstood weeks of sustained attacks, with users remaining unaware of the attack due to technical improvements.
Solana has been the victim of a colossal DDoS attack for at least over a week now.
the fact that you haven’t experienced it is a great testament to the level of engineering present here
—mert | helius.dev (@0xMert_) December 15, 2025
The network has not reported any outages since May 2023. Infrastructure upgrades have included Firedancer, a validator client designed to improve network performance, built by Jump Crypto.
Attack Scale in Context
While significant, the 6Tbps attack falls far short of the largest DDoS incidents recorded this year. Cloudflare mitigated attacks exceeding 29.7 Tbps in Q3 2025, primarily from the Aisuru botnet. Microsoft Azure blocked a 15.72 Tbps attack targeting Australian infrastructure in October.
Several details remain unclear regarding the attack. The methodology used to measure the 6 Tbps figure has not been publicly disclosed. The identity of the attackers remains unknown and their motivations have not been established.
The Solana Foundation has not released an official statement regarding the incident, although the network’s official status page does not show any incidents reported for December 2025.
Despite this, the price of SOL appears largely unaffected. Solana has also seen strong network activity, recently hitting an all-time high of ~$380,000 in daily x402 payment volume, growing ~750% week-over-week.
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Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article is intended to provide accurate and current information, but should not be considered financial or investment advice. Because market conditions can change quickly, we encourage you to verify the information for yourself and consult a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
As a Web3 Marketing Strategist and former DuckDAO CMO, Zoran Spirkovsky translates complex crypto concepts into compelling stories that drive growth. With a background in crypto journalism, he excels in developing go-to-market strategies for DeFi, L2, and GameFi projects.
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