CoinGecko Research has identified the Solana network as the leading blockchain ecosystem of the year thus far. According to their report published on Wednesday, the layer 1 blockchain now commands 49.3% of global crypto investor interest in chain-specific narratives.
The report attributes Solana’s dominant mindshare to its resurgence back to 2021 highs, coupled with the impressive performance of key ecosystem project tokens such as Pyth and native meme coins like dogwifhat.
Thursday’s Coinbase market update further underscores Solana’s significance, revealing approximately $11 billion in transactions conducted on the Solana blockchain in just 24 hours on Monday. This surge in activity was driven by a plethora of smaller tokens, notably meme coins.
Memecoin Craze Fuels Solana Network Activity
Solana’s recent surge in activity has been primarily observed on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Jupiter and Raydium, where traders have been actively engaging with meme coins such as Bonk and Slerf. For close to four months, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) built on Solana have been consistently capturing a larger portion of the market compared to Ethereum-based DEXs such as Uniswap.
Tristan Frizza, Founder of Zeta Markets, commented on the spike in onchain meme coin speculation, highlighting coins like Slerf achieving staggering market caps of over $500 million within hours. This frenzy has largely been facilitated by automated market makers like Raydium, Orca, and the Jupiter aggregator, which enable token creators to swiftly establish new liquidity pools and trade these tokens.
In the past week, Solana’s onchain volumes have witnessed a significant surge, accompanied by a notable increase in network fees. As per The Block’s Data Dashboard, the daily transaction fees on the Solana network have been steadily increasing since the start of March, culminating in a record high of $5.08 million on Monday.
Featured Image: Freepik @ user15508653