Solana (SOL) had a week-long streak, where almost daily, the L1 chain recorded daily transaction records. The Solana network made more than 72 million transactions as of December 24, far surpassing other chains.
Solana is one of the few L1 chains with the technology to scale as an L1 network. The chain still subsidizes its validators while expanding its reach. As of December 24, Solana set a new record for daily transactions, with more than 72 million transfers. The record comes at a time when Ethereum has plateaued at around 1.22 million daily transactions as most of the rapid DEX activity has moved to scalable L2 chains.
Solana recorded a series of record transactions last week, extending the trend so far this year. | Source: Artemis
After the new record, SOL remained below $200, awaiting a recovery. SOL was trading at $194.35, trying to recover after the latest market decline. SOL open interest slowed towards the end of the year, to around $3 billion.
Solana daily transactions grew by 300% in 2024
Artemis data shows that Solana maintained the trend throughout 2024, after starting the year with 24 million daily transactions. Solana has gone through growth problems during peak periods, where failed transactions reached up to 70%. In recent weeks, the chain achieved a 30% to 35% failure rate, allowing for more successful exchanges.
In early 2024, some major chains briefly overtook Solana, but failed to achieve sustainable expansion. At the end of 2024, Solana will host 86%-89% of all major on-chain bot users, with the rest split between Ethereum, Base and BSC.
Solana’s influence also moved away some of the legacy chains from the previous bull cycle, including Avalanche and Polygon. Bot traffic has been one of the key features of Solana, as the speed of DEX trading and meme token activity is too high for human traders.
Solana receives support from meme token activity, which has not decreased. The Pump.fun platform had a brief slowdown in September, but then returned with even higher daily volumes.
After producing some of the most engaging memes, Solana also received a boost in its DEX activity. Raydium, Jito and Solana are still among the top 10 rate producers, although they have moved away from the top 5 spots.
The current transaction spike with relatively lower fees suggests simpler token activity rather than routing or DEX trading. Solana still produces 3.08 million dollars in daily fees, with $4.21 million for Ethereum.
One of the worrying metrics for Solana is that the majority of users have less than 0.01 SOL, indicating that the large number of transactions may have very little economic value.
Solana Meme Tokens Raise Chances of Super Cycle
Solana’s top memes are valued at over $10 billion in market capitalization, taking into account the value of the 15 most active assets. BONK, WIF and BOME remain key memes with regular entries from new traders and whale funds.
Pump.fun decreased its activity during the last week of December. Despite this, the platform hosts more than 150,000 daily active wallets, of which more than 50,000 chips created in the last few days.
Meme tokens also require bot activity, including market makers and pushes to appear more active. Part of Solana’s trading spike may be part of that focus on boosting new meme positions.
Solana remains a highly competitive ecosystem, where risk and growing pains are part of the process. Despite this, the chain remains a staple in the Web3 space.
In addition to meme tokens, Solana received a boost from Pengu (PENGU) activity. The native Pudgy Penguins collection token is attracting attention from both retail and whale buyers. PENGU rose 20% overnight after a series of previous records, trading at $0.036. The token is picking up activity again, powering Solana transactions through its decentralized operations on Raydium.
