Shred Stream

What it is

Raw Solana shreds delivered via UDP as they're produced by the block leader. Shreds are the smallest unit of data in Solana's Turbine protocol.

Latency

~0ms from production — You receive shreds at the same time validators do, before any processing or confirmation.

Data format

Raw binary shreds (1228 bytes max) containing:

• Slot number

• Shred index

• Shred type (data/coding)

• Transaction data fragments

Pros

• Absolute lowest latency available

• See transactions before anyone using Geyser or RPC

• Direct network-level access

Cons

• Requires custom deshredding logic

• UDP may lose packets (no retransmission)

• High technical complexity

• No historical replay

• Requires public IP with open UDP port

Best for

• High-frequency trading (HFT)

• MEV searchers

• Arbitrage bots

• Latency-critical applications

Example use case

A MEV bot detects a large swap in shreds, builds a backrun transaction, and submits it before the original transaction is even confirmed.