Solana, a Layer-1 blockchain, has once again achieved record-breaking network revenues, surpassing its previous all-time high on October 22nd, according to data from Blockworks Research. On October 23rd, Solana generated approximately $8.7 million in economic value from network activity, an increase from the previous day’s revenue of just under $8 million, as reported by Dan Smith, Blockworks’ data analytics manager, on the X platform. This revenue includes various sources such as base fees, priority fees, and tips, among others.
Solana’s SOL token has emerged as a strong competitor to Ethereum, outperforming ETH by around 600% since 2023. The total value locked (TVL) on Solana has skyrocketed from under $250 million at the beginning of 2023 to over $6.8 billion as of October 24th, according to data from DefiLlama. In July, Solana surpassed Ethereum in weekly total fees, generating approximately $25 million in weekly revenue compared to Ethereum’s $21 million, as reported by Blockworks Research.
Solana’s rise has been fueled by the popularity of celebrity coin trading, primarily on Solana-based memecoin platforms like Pump.fun and Moonshot. Moreover, SOL is considered the next cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and ETH to be included in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States.
On October 21st, the Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium surpassed the Ethereum network in 24-hour revenue. Raydium generated $3.4 million in fee revenue, exceeding Ethereum’s $3.35 million, as per DefiLlama’s daily revenue data from protocol fees. Ethereum is still recovering from a significant decline in revenue following the March Dencun upgrade, which reduced transaction fees by approximately 95%.
Despite this, the Ethereum network is projected to generate up to $66 billion in annual free cash flow by 2030, according to Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital asset research, as stated in September. Sigel highlighted that Ethereum has processed approximately $4 trillion in settlement value and $5 trillion in stablecoin transfers annually, making it larger than PayPal and approaching networks like Visa in scale.