Solana Flips Ethereum By Stablecoin Volume and Google Search Traffic

Solana continues to captivate the crypto community, with the surging Layer 1 blockchain posting several landmark milestones over the past week.

Data from Artemis shows the value of stablecoin transfers tagged $103B on Solana last week, beating out all other networks. According to Degen News, a popular web3 influencer, the occasion marks the first instance in which Solana has topped the rankings or beaten out Ethereum by stablecoin volume. Ethereum ranked second with $90.9B, followed by Tron with $82.3, and BNB Chain with $14.6B.

According to Qiao Wang, a former researcher for Messari, Solana-based USDC also overtook Tron-based USDT as the single most transacted stablecoin by volume.

Solana also overtook Ethereum by NFT trade volume for December, with the networks hosting $366.6M and $353.2M worth of trades respectively, according to Degen news. However, data from CryptoSlam shows Solana hosting $329.3M in NFT sales over the past 30 days, roughly 5% less than Ethereum’s $345M in NFT trades for the same period.

Worldwide searches for “Solana” notably surpassed “Ethereum” for the first time in mid-December, according to Google Trends.

Solana outperformed in 2023

The figures cap off a bullish 2023 for Solana. The price of Solana’s network token, SOL, jumped by 936% from $9.97 on Jan. 1 to $103.3 on Dec. 31, according to CoinGecko. The market momentum was propelled by alleviating concerns that FTX, a major SOL investor, may move to liquidate a large share of its holdings during the year, alongside the growing adoption of the network.

However, SOL has dropped over 4% in the past week after ripping to a 2023 of $121.4 in late December.

Solana’s DeFi sector has been on a tear as well, with the network’s total value locked surging 254% from $412M at the start of November to $1.42B today, according to DeFi Llama.

Solana-based decentralized also posted their strongest month on record during December with $28B worth of trades, beating out November’s $8B by more than triple. Jupiter, the network’s leading DEX, accounted for $17B of the total. Solana ranked second by monthly DEX volume behind Ethereum’s $42.4B.

Looking forward, Solana’s community is bullishly awaiting the launch of its forthcoming open-source validator client, Firedancer. Jump Crypto, a web3 development and investment firm, is building the client to bolster Solana’s decentralization and address a potential single point of failure for the network. Firedancer is expected to go live by the second half of 2024.