Over the past three years, Solana has seen a significant increase in trading activity, with total token trading volume reaching approximately $4.4 trillion.
Initially, there was modest weekly activity, with volumes often below $10 billion, reflecting the network’s early adoption phase.
However, as we moved into 2024, trading activity picked up momentum, with weekly turnover consistently reaching the $20–$40 billion range.
This increase indicated a growing participation in decentralized trading venues and memecoin ecosystems built on Solana.
There were also periods of intense volatility, with trading volume spiking to around $120–$130 billion during speculative bursts and memecoin-driven cycles.
These spikes were closely tied to speculative activity within the Solana ecosystem.
Source: Token Terminal
Despite these surges, activity eventually cooled off, with weekly volumes gradually decreasing. This indicated a waning of speculative interest while core usage continued.
Currently, Solana’s weekly trading volume stands at approximately $12–$15 billion, significantly higher than earlier levels of activity.
Source: DeFiLlama
This trend highlights a hybrid structure in Solana’s trading landscape.
While speculative spikes contribute to short-term volume surges, the stable baselines suggest that Solana’s low-fee system continues to attract consistent retail trading demand.
Solana surpasses Ethereum in RWA holders
As Solana’s trading activity grows, tokenized RWAs offer insight into the evolving ecosystem beyond speculative markets.
Participation data reveals changing adoption dynamics across major networks.
Ethereum still leads in capital concentration, with around $15.45 billion in RWAs across 675 assets, reflecting strong institutional issuance and financial integrations.
Source: RWA.xyz
However, wallet distribution paints a different picture.
With approximately 154,942 RWA holders, Solana slightly edges out Ethereum’s 153,592 holders, indicating wider retail access within Solana’s ecosystem.
Despite this, Solana’s total RWA value is lower at around $1.79 billion, suggesting an earlier stage of capital deployment.
In contrast, participation is lower on other networks.
BNB Chain has around 39,218 holders, while Polygon records about 15,482 users.
Overall, this structure indicates that while Ethereum serves as the institutional hub, Solana is increasingly becoming a retail gateway for tokenized financial assets.
Volume surge tests Solana’s liquidity resilience
While Solana’s trading surge showcases strong activity, the underlying liquidity paints a more nuanced picture.
Data from DeFiLlama shows $6.53 billion in TVL supporting $14.96 billion in weekly DEX volume, resulting in a 0.4 liquidity-to-volume ratio, lower than Ethereum’s 4.57 benchmark.
As a result, smaller trades on Solana execute with minimal slippage, making the network attractive to retail traders.
However, larger orders face shallow depth, leading to increased price impact during demand spikes.
Around $15.4 billion in stablecoin supply supports over 60% of trading pairs, ensuring continuous market activity on Solana-based exchanges.
Additionally, the network processes approximately 3.4K transactions per second, with Average Transaction Fees remaining below $0.00025.
Source: Token Terminal
Ethereum maintains an advantage with $160 billion in stablecoins and expanding RWA liquidity, indicating a multi-layered market where Solana drives trading velocity while Ethereum anchors institutional settlement.
Final Summary
- Solana continues to attract strong retail trading activity with weekly volumes stabilizing around $15 billion, although liquidity depth remains lower than Ethereum’s institutional capital base.
- Ethereum maintains its structural dominance through deeper stablecoin and RWA liquidity.