Solana ecosystem faces mixed week: price dips slightly, DeFi TVL grows, meme coins surge, while active wallet metrics spark debate.
TL;DR
- Solana's price dropped slightly to $141.85, down 1.61%
- Ecosystem market cap declined 5% to $253.26B
- DeFi TVL grew to $5.41B
- Meme coins POPCAT and WIF lead gains
- RWA tokens on Solana surged 102%
- Debate over Solana's active wallet metrics intensifies
Here’s how Solana performed this week.
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Solana The Last 7 Days
It’s been a rather uneventful week for Solana, with its ecosystem tokens losing some steam, other than the meme coin sector. While the chain has just announced that Stripe payments with Solana USDC and USDP stablecoins are now live, the post-Breakpoint hangover continues, with a new debate over its active wallet count starting, and other L1s like Sui have their moments.
In crypto, we’ve seen that it’s impossible to retain the industry’s attention indefinitely, so the builders are back to building as we wait for October to transform (hopefully) into Uptober again.
You can revisit some of the biggest Breakpoint moments here:
Let’s look at the 7-day stats:
- Price: $141.85, down 1.61%
- Market cap: $66.5b, FDV $83.1 billion
- DeFi TVL: $5.275 billion
- Daily active addresses: >4 million
- 24h trading volume: $1,6 billion
Solana vs SUI
While Solana is going all out in its efforts to usurp Ethereum as the leading layer-1 ecosystem chain, rivals like Ton and Tron have tried to stake their own claim this year and siphon off Solana market share and users via the tried and trusted meme coin path.
In recent weeks though, SUI has risen through the ranks with several integrations and updates (2 days ago, it was announced that USDC is now natively supported) that have caused its price to nearly 4x from early August.
With SUI meme coins also beginning to run, the leading Move chain should be watched closely, but at this stage, they’re still miles behind and with only 25% of tokens in circulation. This is undoubtedly the first battle of a long war that lies ahead between the two rival chains. Both networks have grown their TVL by over 400% year to date.
Solana Ecosystem The Last Week
In the past week, the Solana ecosystem's market cap experienced a significant decline. After peaking on 30 September at $267 billion, the value dropped by 5% partly due to the Middle East tension and Uptober sell-off, reaching $253.26B on October 9 for the 7-day period. The trading volume on October 9 was $60.90B. Despite this recent downturn, the current market cap remains higher than levels seen in early September, indicating volatility within a broader upward trend.
Who’s Making Moves on Solana?
Looking at the top coins in the Solana ecosystem, we can see that the meme coins are back on top, specifically POPCAT and WIF. Arweave (AR) appears to be the worst performer, ending below its starting point
The top 20 Solana ecosystem tokens tell the story:
Top Gainers:
- Popcat (POPCAT): +21% (7d), +124% (90d)
- Cat in a dogs world (MEW): +20% (7d), +67% (90d)
- Dogwifhat (WIF): +7% (7d), +41% (90d)
- Raydium (RAY): +3% (7d), -8% (90d)
- The Graph (GRT): 0% (7d), -18% (90d)
Top Losers:
- Wormhole (W): -17% (7d), +2% (90d)
- Render (RENDER): -7% (7d), -20% (90d)
- Bonk (BONK): -7% (7d), -23% (90d)
- Helium (HNT): -8% (7d), +113% (90d)
- Jito (JTO): -8% (7d), -10% (90d)
General Trends:
- Meme coins (POPCAT, MEW, WIF) have shown strong performance over the last week and 90 days
- Some tokens (like HNT) show high volatility between short and long-term performance
- Most major tokens (SOL, LINK) have slightly decreased in the last 7 days
Solana DeFi
While its price was sliding, Solana continued to increase its total value locked (TVL) from $5.28 billion to $5.41 billion across its DeFi ecosystem.
The Solana DeFi ecosystem had a quiet week. Jito, the leader in TVL with $1.892 billion, experienced a -2.5% decline. Kamino also saw a 3.5% dip, while Raydium, a leading DEX with $1.22 billion in TVL, grew by +1.2%, adding to its +45% monthly increase.
BlazeStake saw the biggest loss, dropping -4.22% over the week. Despite these fluctuations, revenue generation remained healthy, with Raydium and Jito leading the way, generating $57,507 and $52,640 in the last 24 hours, highlighting strong network activity.
Solana Meme Coins
Solana meme coins are back in vogue, and so surprisingly is Pump.fun, which has clocked a crazy 12 straight days of at least $900,000 in revenue, according to a Dune dashboard. This comes on the back of the success of the latest meme coin sensation
Moo Deng, based on a Thai zoo hippo, shows that crypto degens are starting to branch out from cats and dogs and frogs into trading more animal tokens. The hip hippo token has had a rough week after its initial ascent, shedding 34% in the last 7 days, despite Moo Deng just being too ridiculously cute. And blissfully unaware of meme coins of course.
Source: Dune Analytics
Writer’s CMC Solana Meme Coin List
- Gigachad (GIGA) rallied 91% in the past week and an incredible 4,480% over the last 90 days, as KOLs pile in.
- Popcat (SOL) is up another 16% this week and has risen 136% over the past 90 days. It’s up a ridiculous 14,300% in 2024 so far.
- Bonk (BONK) dropped by 10% this week but is still up 54% for the year. It’s definitely feeling the heat from the cats (PopCat and MEW) and its number 2 spot is
- Retardio (RETARDIO) had a huge spike this week, up 64%, while also seeing steady growth of 37% over the last 90 days.
- Moo Deng was the biggest loser this week, falling by 34%, but still boasts a solid 331% growth over the last 90 days
NFTs
According to NFTPulse, in the past 7 days, Solana had the 2nd most users after Base (22%) and generated $142K in trading revenue, trailing Ethereum’s $208k. However, it tops the chain royalties with nearly half of it going to Solana NFT creators ($559k) thanks to the impact of marketplaces like MagicEden.
Top 5 Solana News Stories
Solana Active Wallets Surge, But Many Empty
Source: TokenTerminal
Solana's monthly active address count has soared past 100 million, marking a new all-time high. However, data shows that most active wallets hold little or no SOL, leading to debates about the legitimacy of these metrics and potential bot activity.
HBO Documentary Sparks Satoshi Nakamoto Speculation
A new HBO documentary claimed Peter Todd is Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, fueling a meme coin frenzy on Solana. This comes after prediction markets earlier favored Len Sassaman, a deceased early cypherpunk. Despite Todd's firm denial, opportunistic coins like $PeterTodd and $YOURMOM saw significant market cap fluctuations before crashing.
BonkBot Reveals Major Security Upgrades
Solana's popular Telegram-based trading tool, BonkBot, announced significant security improvements. New features include a proprietary key management system, 2FA mini-app, and pre-transaction protection, aiming to enhance user security without sacrificing speed.
Tokenized U.S. Treasuries Boom on Solana
Solana-based tokenized treasury assets have surged 102% in the past month, with Ondo Finance's $USDY leading the charge. The growth suggests a potential migration of Real World Assets (RWA) to the Solana blockchain.
Institutions Could Give Solana Edge Over Ethereum
Some analysts believe Solana could surpass Ethereum by attracting institutions for tokenization platforms and stablecoins. Solana's scalability and efficiency are seen as potential draws for conservative institutions, despite Ethereum's current market dominance.
What You Can Do Now
- Investigate the surge in Solana's active wallets and assess the implications of potentially inflated metrics.
- Monitor the growth of tokenized U.S. Treasuries on Solana, particularly Ondo Finance's $USDY.
- Evaluate BonkBot's new security features and consider their impact on Solana's trading ecosystem.
- Keep an eye on the performance of Solana meme coins, especially POPCAT and WIF.
- Assess the potential for institutional adoption of Solana for tokenization and stablecoins.
- Watch for developments in the rivalry between Solana and emerging competitors like SUI.
- Consider the implications of Solana's growing NFT market share and royalties for creators.
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