FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried has defended the outage-hit solana network, saying it still handled more transactions than any major blockchain

• FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried spoke up for solana after the network was hit with its second outage in a month.
• He said demand is the issue, saying solana still processed more transactions all other major blockchains combined.

Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has jumped to the defense of solana again after the network was hit by its second major outage this month, suggesting the problems are due to trying to keep up with demand.

The solana network went down for 48 hours on Friday, its third in six months, prompting critics to pile in. Bankman-Fried responded Tuesday on Twitter, in an 8-point thread arguing these are just more growing pains for the ethereum rival.

"Solana has had degraded performance this week. But 'degraded' is relative — from what to what?" he tweeted.

"As far as I can tell, during the week when it's had performance issues, and if you exclude all of the voting transactions from the TPS ... it's still processed more transactions than all other major blockchains. Combined."

As a proof-of-stake network, solana has often been touted as an "ethereum killer" in decentralized finance, or DeFi, and in non-fungible tokens in particular. Owners of NFTs are verified via a blockchain, which allows them to be traded as a stand-in for the digital asset they represent.

The downtime brought a flurry of criticism on social media, such as this tweet from a crypto fan by the name Daniel Chung:

"Solana being down for 48 hours multiple times now makes me question the viability of a monolithic structure. It's clear the winning blockchain of the future will likely be one with a modular architecture," he said.

But Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has said he believes solana is one of the few networks able to handle mass adoption, and his business is building several projects on it.

"Yes, it hasn't processed as many as it could have. But it's still doing a ton," he said on Twitter. "Which is to say: there's more work to do. There's always more work to do."

"And the most important thing is doing that work. Building."

Bankman-Fried is working on projects built on the solana network, most notably DeFi platform Serum Dex, created by Serum Foundations and backed by FTX, Alameda Research and others.

Last week, "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary lauded solana and Bankman-Fried's work on the blockchain. "Who's working on that? Sam Bankman Fried and his team. Why wouldn't ya bet that horse?" he said.

Some major banks also see potential in the network. Earlier in January, Bank of America said solana's cheaper fees and ease of access could see it take market share away from ethereum. Also this month, JPMorgan noted that ethereum was losing market share in the NFT space to rivals like solana.