At Sling we use the Solana blockchain, which is a public blockchain that utilizes public-key cryptography and distributed computing to help make various types of transactions -- including financial transactions -- fast, inexpensive, and accessible to people around the world.

No single organization or entity owns or controls the Solana blockchain. At the time of this writing Solana is maintained by a group of thousands of companies and individuals called "validators" who help run the network. At the time of this writing there were 1,698 Solana validators who collectively operate the Solana blockchain.

The Solana blockchain is global and extremely fast and efficient. Most transactions on Solana process in a second or two and cost $0.0000039. Yes, that's a tiny fraction of a penny. By contrast, SWIFT, the traditional method for transferring money between countries can cost as much as $20 per transaction and take several days.

Solana also allows us to offer Sling users a self-custody product, which means that every Sling user actually owns and controls their wallet and wallet contents. This is very different than traditional financial products where money is deposited with a third-party which can access their user's accounts whenever they want and exert control over that money. We think that this is a very nice feature of this technology.

Solana also allows us to offer portability. You can export your wallet from Sling and import it into other wallet software providers like Phantom Wallet whenever you like. When you do this all of your money and transaction history goes with you. We think this is the way that all financial services should work. You should be in control, not the bank or payments provider.

All Sling Wallets are self-custody on the Solana blockchain and all peer-to-peer transactions between Sling users take place using the Solana blockchain and USDC digital currency.

We're early in our journey but we believe that Solana allows us to offer a superior product at lower cost and higher speed than competing technologies -- whether they be blockchains or traditional financial infrastructure like SWIFT.

Sling is environmentally efficient. We use Solana’s distributed ledger to power the service. Each transaction on Solana uses 0.878k Joules, which is less than a Google search and 0.0000243889% of the energy used in an hour by an LED light bulb. To learn more, Solana publishes its real-time carbon footprint, and offsets its emissions.