Solana has earned a reputation for speed and scalability, delivering the performance needed for a growing ecosystem of decentralized applications. Yet, as these dApps become more sophisticated, raw performance alone isn’t sufficient to solve every challenge. Developers often need fine-tuned control over how transactions run, data is stored, and security is enforced.
Enter Network Extensions. Rather than building separate blockchains or sidechains, network extensions provide specialized, customizable “lanes” within Solana’s main network. You essentially own a dedicated highway lane free of traffic but are still connected to the larger road system.
At their core, network extensions are customized execution environments that sit on top of Solana. They remain deeply integrated with Solana’s validator set, benefiting from the same security and composability. Unlike stock Solana dApps that share the same execution layer, a Network Extension can define:
You can tailor Solana’s infrastructure to your needs while preserving the network’s reliability.
While Solana is highly performant, one-size-fits-all isn’t ideal for every project. For instance:
Each of these scenarios can benefit from dedicated resources and customizable parameters that a standard L1 environment may not fully provide.
Network extensions allow teams to experiment in a safer environment. You can prototype alternative consensus logic or economic models without risking mainnet congestion. Unlike spinning up a new chain where you’d have to bootstrap your own validators and ecosystem, network extensions inherit Solana’s existing qualities, i.e. liquidity, security, and composability.
This is the main differentiating factor between sidechains and network extensions: sidechains often have their own security models, validator sets, and tokens, while network extensions remain directly anchored to Solana’s core validator set and security to preserve the trustless, unified network effect.
There are various capabilities from network extensions, so let’s dive into some examples and explore how teams are leveraging them:
Data-heavy dApps need reliable ways to process and store large datasets without overloading the mainnet. A network extension can offload both computational tasks and large-scale storage to specialized environments, then verify those off-chain actions on-chain.
Example: Grass Network
Grass Network is a decentralized platform that rewards users for sharing unused bandwidth to collect and structure public web data for AI training.
The volume of transactions processed by Grass per second is too high to be feasibly ordered and executed on the Solana mainnet, thus operating as a sovereign data rollup becomes the most practical solution for its operations.
Since most data scraping happens off-chain, the main network stays uncluttered. The on-chain components simply confirm authenticity and track data ownership for Grass.
Grass' approach highlights how network extensions optimize data-heavy tasks by offloading processing while maintaining verifiable and cost-effective AI training data with Solana's security for final proofs.
Efficiency often comes at the expense of user privacy within payment systems. Traditional blockchain solutions may expose transaction histories or balances, which limits their suitability for users who require confidentiality. A network extension for private payments can leverage Solana's throughput to protect user data while executing secure global transactions.
Example: Code
Code provides a peer-to-peer payment platform that exemplifies the combination of payments and privacy, powered by Solana's infrastructure.
In high-performance environments, executing complex transactions across multiple ecosystems can create bottlenecks. A network extension can streamline such operations by managing intents, which are user-defined instructions for specific outcomes through efficient routing and execution within the ecosystem.
Example: Cube
Cube exemplifies intent-based execution by integrating deeply with Solana to offer frictionless, high-speed transaction processing and cross-chain interactions.
Constructing a network extension from scratch can be complex. Teams often need to juggle specialized consensus logic, ZK modules, data solutions, and more. Termina streamlines this process via a modular infrastructure stack that plugs into Solana:
Developers can customize network extensions in a modular, Lego-like fashion to suit unique project requirements, such as high-throughput MEV solutions, IoT connectivity hubs, or data-intensive AI pipelines.
Network extensions act as a buff to Solana's existing capabilities. Providers like Termina build specialized modules for computation, verification, and data management, allowing teams to accelerate development. This framework positions Solana to support complex applications in DeFi, IoT, data services, and more, all within a unified, high-performance blockchain network.
Interested in using Termina’s infrastructure? Register for our private network now: https://tally.so/r/wb20D7
