From Meme Coins to DeFi Dominance: How Solana Overtook Ethereum’s Early Growth Curve

Solana’s revenue engine has matured at a pace few in the industry could have anticipated, and has now clearly surpassed Ethereum’s early growth ￰0￱ meme coin mania, DeFi, AI, and RWAs, Solana has managed to capture several on-chain revenue streams that Ethereum couldn’t monetize early, a new report suggests. Solana’s Early Growth Curve According to 21Shares, the blockchain generated roughly $2.85 billion in revenue between October 2024 and September 2025, after averaging nearly $240 million per ￰1￱ during periods of intense trading activity were found to be more than $600 million, with January 2025 marking the absolute high point at $616 ￰2￱ surge was driven largely by meme coin mania, including coins like Trump ￰3￱ after the speculative frenzy cooled, Solana’s monthly revenues have remained in the $150 million-$250 million ￰4￱ sustained figures demonstrated that the chain’s success “is not merely a speculative flash in the pan.” A closer look at the revenue composition reveals a highly diversified ￰5￱ applications such as Photon and Axiom contributed $1.12 billion, or 39% of the total, by facilitating faster swaps, advanced execution, and high-frequency ￰6￱ trading, Solana’s infrastructure supports a broad spectrum of DeFi, AI, DePin, and tokenized real-world asset ￰7￱ architecture, capable of thousands of transactions per second at sub-$0.01 costs, has effectively transformed Solana into a 24/7, global “on-chain Nasdaq,” which has helped it rival long-established Web 2 companies like Palantir ($2.8 billion in 2024) and Robinhood ($2.95 billion) in annual ￰8￱ Check The contrast with Ethereum during its formative years couldn’t be more ￰9￱ 2019 and 2020, roughly four to five years after Ethereum’s launch, monthly revenue averaged less than $10 million, which is less than 5% of what Solana now produces on a monthly ￰10￱ peak months, Solana’s revenue has outpaced Ethereum’s early numbers by more than ￰11￱ Ethereum’s growth was constrained by congestion and modest gas fee revenue in a nascent DeFi ecosystem, Solana has leveraged high throughput and low fees to monetize a broader range of activity much earlier in its ￰12￱ active addresses on Solana now consistently hit 1.2-1.5 million, compared to Ethereum’s 400,000-500,000 during its early years.

Solana’s revenue growth has not been linear. 21Shares found that just two years ago, between October 2022 and September 2023, total network revenue stood at a mere $13 million, which can be attributed to early skepticism amid outages and market ￰13￱ 220x increase over the past 12 months, however, was a shift from experimental blockchain to a commercially viable ￰14￱ after, institutional interest followed suit. Currently, over $3 billion in SOL is held on public company balance sheets, and multiple treasury initiatives are underway from firms including Forward Industries, Pantera Capital, and Brera Holdings.