"Wrapped SOL (wSOL) is native SOL that is wrapped using the Solana Token Program, which allows it to be treated like any other SPL (Solana Program Library) token type."
What comes with a token being 'treated like any other SPL (Solana Program Library) token type'?
The concept is similar to wrapped ETH on Ethereum, which turns ETH from a native token to an ERC-20. Essentially, SOL is the native token on Solana, so it's ingrained into the base protocol. Every account on Solana can hold SOL, and there's no other ERC-20 style concepts like approvals, minting, freezing, etc.
So if you want more functionality for SOL tokens, you need to use another protocol to "wrap" the SOL in another account. SPL-Token provides a way to send SOL into an account and pretend like the SOL is a normal SPL-Token, and this process is called "wrapping".
When trading tokens on Solana most token pairs, for example, your favorite memecoin is paired with WSOL. WSOL is the token representation of SOL. SOL is unique to Solana blockchain and serves as currency to pay for transactions. WSOL on the other hand is more akin to all other tokens on Solana. One advantage for example is trading with WSOL is faster than SOL (since you would not need to do the extra step of wrapping SOL before trading). You can get WSOL on Raydium or Jupiter or you can check out my app that turns SOL into WSOL right inside your wallet. https://wrapmysol.com
