Journalist
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Solana’s network activity fell 97% in Q4 2025, and SOL’s price drop also followed.
From a peak of more than 30 million active traders at the end of 2024, the network’s influence has fallen to less than a million monthly traders in 2025.
An analyst I asked myself if it was “finished for Solana” in the middle of muted activity.
Source: Dunes
Although contracting trading volumes in late 2025 is a broader market trend, with Bitcoin price falling more than 30%, Solana (SOL) The matter was a little more nuanced.
Memecoins Solana: A risk or a test bed?
Solana and Hyperliquid have been key success stories this cycle. SOL, in particular, rose from $8 to almost $300, 35x growth from the 2022 cycle lows.
As the chain stabilized and minimized network outages, memecoins remained a key component revenue and traffic generator.
During the 2025 market rout, memecoins were among the first to be hit. But Solana’s supporters, like the Marty Party, have always see memecoins as a “test” for other “real world” applications.
“Memecoin players left after successful liveness test, they will be replaced by stock traders and 50 million stablecoin users – catch up.”
Despite this, the near-term risk of the memecoin business has become evident. SOL price fell from nearly $300 to yearly support at $120 – a 58% price drop during the memecoin lull.
That being said, the chain has attracted some institutional interest, such as Visa for stablecoin settlements. However, network resilience might be possible if the dominance of network activity shifted away from gaming.
Solana vs. Ethereum
Maybe this could close the earnings gap with Ethereum leading institutional adoption. So far in 2025, Ethereum has made over $1.4 billion in annual revenue, while Solana has raked in $5,022 million, a 3x difference.
In 2024, however, Solana had revenue of $2.5 billion, suggesting a 5x decline this year. Anatoly Yakovenko called this year “crazy”. addition that,
“It’s been a crazy year. Whether open protocols without authorization can actually increase and maintain revenue remains an open question.”
Source: DeFi Developer
In terms of investor returns, SOL has underperformed ETH by 56% this year, a stark contrast to the relative gains of over 24% made against ETH last year.
In fact, Fundstrat predicts that the SOL price could fall into the $50-$75 range in the first half of 2026.
For analyst Ted Pillows, however, there was a higher probability of a 15% upside between $134 and $140, citing massive $1 billion bullish liquidity from leveraged shorts.
Source: CoinGlass
Final Thoughts
- The main driver of Solana’s network business, memecoins, fell by more than 90% and took the price with it.
- Ethereum tripled Solana in terms of annual revenue, unlike 2024 performance.
