A pseudonymous developer known as cavemanloverboy has submitted a proposal to change how Solana handles transaction fees — aiming to increase the amount of SOL burned by adding a new base fee on every network transaction. The plan, if adopted, could make Solana's tokenomics deflationary during periods of very high activity, a shift from the current model where most fees are burned but the network still issues new SOL to validators.
How the base fee would work
Under the proposal, every transaction on Solana would carry a mandatory base fee, separate from any priority fees users can add to speed up processing. Today, Solana burns a portion of priority fees (the tips users pay to validators), but the base fee structure has been minimal or absent. Cavemanloverboy's idea is to introduce a consistent, network-wide base fee that would be directed entirely to the burn mechanism — permanently removing those SOL from circulation.
The developer hasn't specified an exact fee amount in the proposal's early draft, but the core logic is straightforward: more transactions mean more base fees collected, and more SOL eliminated. On a network that regularly processes hundreds of millions of transactions per day, even a tiny fee per transaction could add up quickly.
Deflationary math under load
Solana's current tokenomics issue inflation — new SOL is minted every epoch to reward validators and stakers. The network's inflation rate is set to decline over time, but it's still a net issuance system most of the time. Under cavemanloverboy's proposal, during periods when the total fees burned exceed the new SOL minted, the supply would begin to shrink. That would mark the first time Solana's supply could turn deflationary purely from transaction activity, not just from a protocol change.
The proposal notes that this effect would be most pronounced during spikes in network usage — such as meme-coin manias or NFT mints — exactly when the chain is busiest. Critics might worry about higher costs for users during those peaks, but the base fee is meant to be small enough that it won't deter normal transactions.
What happens next
Cavemanloverboy's proposal is still in early discussion on Solana's governance forum. No formal vote has been scheduled, and the Solana Foundation has not issued a statement. Developers and validators will need to weigh the trade-offs between additional deflationary pressure and the risk of pricing out small users. The community is expected to debate the proposal over the coming weeks. A concrete timeline for any potential implementation has not been set.
