The Solana web outpaced Ethereum successful monthly decentralized speech (DEX) measurement successful July, according to DefiLlama data.
Solana’s DEX transactions reached $55.8 billion, surpassing Ethereum’s $53.8 cardinal for the aforesaid period. This represents Solana’s second-highest monthly volume, pursuing March 2024’s highest of $60.7 billion.
Solana’s volume spike is chiefly owed to enactment connected platforms similar Raydium, Orca, and Phoenix. In contrast, Ethereum’s measurement is predominantly driven by the Uniswap exchange.
Despite these figures, Ethereum remains the starring DeFi platform, holding astir 61% of the marketplace and locking $67 cardinal successful assets. In comparison, Solana commands lone 4.64% of the market, with a full worth locked (TVL) of $5.16 billion.
What is driving Solana’s growth?
Analysts constituent to a emergence successful memecoin activity arsenic a cardinal operator down Solana’s accrued DEX volume.
Over the past year, the blockchain has experienced important maturation successful assorted memecoins, from cat-themed to politically inspired tokens. This has led to accrued liquidity arsenic traders look to capitalize connected these assets.
Institutional endorsements person besides fueled involvement successful Solana, and speculation astir a imaginable Solana exchange-traded money (ETF) whitethorn person contributed to its growth. In June, salient plus absorption firms VanEck and 21Shares applied with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make a spot-based Solana ETF.
Further, marketplace analysts person noted accrued usage of stablecoins connected Solana. Data from Allium connected Visa’s stablecoin dashboard shows that the transaction measurement for the USDC stablecoin connected Solana has exceeded $8 trillion since the opening of past year, with USDT connected the Tron blockchain pursuing astatine $6.5 trillion.
Wash-trading concerns
Meanwhile, Solana’s caller surge successful DEX trading has raised concerns astir imaginable lavation trading. A caller report by the pseudonymous crypto expert Flip Research claims that 93% of transactions connected the blockchain are inorganic.
The study indicates that Solana’s regular transactions are heavy influenced by lavation trading, MEV bots, and scams, which connection minimal worth to retail traders. Flip Research noted:
“Looking astatine the wallets involved, the immense bulk look to beryllium bots successful the aforesaid web with tens of thousands of transactions. They make fake volumes independently, with random amounts of SOL and a random no. of transactions until the task rugs, earlier moving onto the adjacent one.”
The station Solana’s July DEX measurement exceeds Ethereum amid lavation trading concerns appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.