Solana Q4 activity soars, outpaces Ethereum: Report

Journalist

Posted: December 20, 2023

• Solana has seen a 400% growth in user activity in Q4.
• Its DeFi and NFT sectors have also seen considerable growth in the past few months.

Daily user activity on Solana [SOL] has seen a notable rise of almost 400% as the last quarter of the year nears its end. This dwarfed the meager 3% increase seen on Ethereum [ETH], on-chain data provider Messari noted in a new report. 

Source: Messari

According to the research firm, the recent surge in new demand for Solana is due to the series of token airdrops completed by some protocols housed within the Layer 1 (L1) blockchain network. 

For example, on the 20th of November, the Solana-based oracle network Pyth (PYTH) completed the airdrop of 250 million PYTH tokens worth around $77 million to its early users.

Also, on the 7th of December, Jito airdropped some of its native tokens worth $225 Million to some of its users on the Solana network.

Jupiter, a swap aggregator and one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols on Solana, recently announced that its highly anticipated airdrop of 4 billion JUP tokens will take place in January.

Apart from the series of airdrops by projects on the chain, the meteoric rise in BONK’s value has contributed to the upswing in Solana’s network activity.

Solana’s DeFi and NFT ecosystems see growth

Exchanging hands at $0.0000209 at press time, the dog-themed token has rallied by 544.4% in the last month, according to data from CoinGecko. 

The airdrops have culminated in a 30% growth in SOL’s value in the last month. According to Messari:

“Combined with the recent airdrops and positive price appreciation, these factors have helped make Solana firmly the second-largest chain by DEX volumes, closely rivaling Ethereum for the top spot.”

In the last month, there has been a significant increase in activity across the DEXes on Solana. AMBCrypto found that the total volume of transactions completed through Solana-based DEXes has grown by 255% in the last 30 days.

As of the 18th of December, this totaled $871 million, data from Artemis showed.

Source: Artemis

How much are 1,10,100 SOLs worth today?

According to Messari:

“Nearly 60% of Solana’s DEX volume is driven through DEX aggregator Jupiter, which has eclipsed Uniswap V3 on Ethereum. Jupiter’s trades are routed to underlying DEXs that settle the order, the largest of which has been Orca. Orca is now the second largest DEX in all of crypto, behind Uniswap V3 on Ethereum.”

Further, Solana’s non-fungible token (NFT) vertical has also seen an impressive performance in the past few months. As highlighted in the report, sales volume on the chain has increased by almost 500% in the last 90 days. 

Source: Messari