Solana (SOL) deployed an urgent security patch for validators on Friday, but more than half of the value on the network remains exposed to the older software.
This slow adoption comes on top of a 42% collapse in the number of validators over the past year.
Despite these infrastructure concerns, Solana's on-chain activity reached new highs, with a significant increase in volumes on decentralized exchanges and adoption of stablecoins.
What happened
Solana Status announced the v3.0.14 release on January 10, urging all mainnet validators to install it immediately.
This version contained "critical fixes" without disclosing the specific vulnerabilities addressed.
On Saturday evening, approximately 51.3% of the network's stake remained on the old v3.0.13 client.
Only 18% had migrated to the secure v3.0.14 version, creating a vulnerability window in the proof-of-stake consensus.
The number of active validators dropped from 1,364 to 783 over the past year.
This decline accelerated after the Solana Foundation introduced "pruning" in April 2025, removing less performant operators to improve network quality.
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Why is it important
The slow update highlights infrastructure risks despite Solana's dominant on-chain activity.
DEX volumes reached approximately $30 billion per week, a 25% increase compared to the previous week, according to DeFiLlama data.
Solana's stablecoin market cap surged to $15 billion, a 200% increase over the past year.
The network processes eight times more daily transactions than any other competing blockchain.
A smaller number of validators concentrate control among larger operators, which could weaken decentralization as economic activity grows.
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