Solana’s trading activity has grown significantly over the past three years, accumulating approximately $4.4 trillion in total token trading volume.
Early periods showed modest weekly activity, often remaining below $10 billion. This phase reflects the early phase of network adoption.
However, the momentum accelerated through 2024, as weekly turnover increased steadily. The business has frequently been between $20 and $40 billion.
This change signaled growing participation in decentralized trading platforms and memecoin ecosystems built on Solana.
Later, volatility intensified as several weeks saw dramatic gains. At the peak, trading volume briefly reached around $120-130 billion.
These spikes align with speculative surges and memecoin-driven liquidity cycles across the entire Solana ecosystem.
Source: Token Terminal
But this surge proved temporary and activity subsequently slowed. Weekly volumes gradually compressed, indicating that speculative enthusiasm faded while basic usage persisted.
At press time, the network was generating approximately $12-15 billion in weekly trading volume. This level remains significantly higher than the activity at the start of the cycle.
Source: DeFiLlama
Thus, the trajectory reveals a hybrid structure.
Speculative spikes amplify near-term volume, while stabilized baselines suggest Solana’s low-fee architecture continues to attract persistent retail demand.
Solana overtakes Ethereum among RWA holders
As Solana’s (SOL) trading business grows, tokenized RWAs provide another perspective on how its ecosystem is evolving beyond speculative markets.
Participation data is beginning to reveal changing adoption dynamics across major networks.
Ethereum (ETH) still leads in terms of capital concentration, securing approximately $15.45 billion in RWA across 675 assets. This scale reflects strong institutional issuance and established financial integrations.
Source: RWA.xyz
However, portfolio distribution presents a different perspective.
Solana recorded approximately 154,942 RWA holders, slightly exceeding Ethereum’s 153,592 holders. This crossover suggested broader retail accessibility within Solana’s infrastructure.
At the same time, Solana’s total RWA value remained below approximately $1.79 billion, indicating an earlier stage of capital deployment.
Elsewhere, participation is declining sharply.
BNB Chain (BNB) hosts around 39,218 holders, while Polygon registers around 15,482 users.
Overall, the structure suggests that Ethereum remains the institutional hub, while Solana increasingly functions as a retail gateway for tokenized financial assets.
Rising Volumes Test Solana’s Liquidity Resilience
Solana’s trading surge signals strong activity, but the underlying liquidity reveals a more complex structure.
DeFiLlama data showed $6.53 billion in TVL supporting $14.96 billion in weekly DEX volume. This produces a liquidity-to-volume ratio of 0.4, well below Ethereum’s benchmark of 4.57.
As a result, smaller trades execute with minimal slippage, boosting Solana’s appeal to retail traders.
However, larger orders still face shallow depth, where the price impact increases quickly during demand peaks.
On top of that, around $15.4 billion in stablecoin supply supported over 60% of trading pairs.
This stable liquidity has helped maintain continued market activity on Solana-based exchanges.
During this time, the network processed approximately 3.4K transactions per second, while the average transaction fee remained below $0.00025.
Source: Token Terminal
Still, Ethereum maintains a structural advantage thanks to $160 billion in stablecoins and expanding RWA liquidity, suggesting a tiered market in which Solana drives trading velocity while Ethereum anchors institutional settlement.
Final summary
- Solana continues to attract strong retail activity as weekly volumes stabilize near $15 billion, although the depth of liquidity remains below Ethereum’s institutional capital base.
- Ethereum maintains structural dominance thanks to more stable liquidity and RWA.
