The Solana (SOL) network has surpassed Ethereum and Base combined in 24-hour decentralized exchanges (DEX) trading volume, according to data from DefiLlama.
Daily trading volume across Solana-based DEXs neared $3.8 billion on Jan. 6, versus $1.7 billion for Ethereum and $1.2 billion for Base, Ethereum’s most popular layer-2 scaling network, according to DefiLlama.
The rising trading volume reflects the Solana network’s increasing prominence in decentralized finance (DeFi) and its emergence as a serious challenger to Ethereum.
From a price perspective, Solana (SOL) has outperformed Ether (ETH) by approximately eight times since 2023, according to data from TradingView.
Solana’s total value locked (TVL) is also outpacing Ethereum’s. In 2024, Solana’s TVL rose roughly five times, from around $1.4 billion to upward of $9.5 billion, according to DefiLlama.
“Retail traders increasingly enter the crypto market through Solana [as] speculation intensifies around Solana-based memecoins and AI agent tokens,” Grayscale Research said in December.
Source: DefiLlama
Related: DeFi TVL nears 2021 highs on liquid restaking, Bitcoin L2s
Rising trading volumes
In 2024, 24-hour trading volumes on Raydium — Solana’s leading DEX — increased by more than ten times, from around $180 million in January to more than $3 billion on Dec. 31, according to DefiLlama.
In November, Raydium beat Uniswap — Ethereum’s leading DEX — in monthly trading volumes by roughly 30%, or approximately $30 billion, according to a December report by Messari Research.
That figure reversed in December, with Uniswap’s volume reaching $92 billion compared to roughly $61 billion for Raydium, according to DefiLlama.
Raydium’s “success is largely attributed to its dominance within the Solana ecosystem,” the Messari report said, adding that the DEX consistently captures over 60% of daily DEX volume on the layer-1 blockchain network.
In particular, “[m]emecoin trading has become a substantial driver of Raydium’s volume, with memecoins accounting for an all-time high of 65% of Raydium’s monthly volume in November,” the report added.
Source: DefiLlama
Fueled by venture capital funding and political speculation, memecoins now command approximately $130 billion in market capitalization, according to CoinGecko.
In November, Solana’s top memecoin platform, Pump.fun, was the eighth highest-earning blockchain protocol, ranking just below giants such as Uniswap and Circle, the issuer of USDC (USDC).
In the past 30 days, Pump.fun generated nearly $250 million in trading volume, according to data from DefiLlama.
After bootstrapping sufficient liquidity, memecoins minted on Pump.fun are typically traded on Raydium.
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