Solana DEXs Dominate Despite Memecoin Meltdown

It seems nothing can slow Solana’s five-month roll, not even a memecoin crash. According to DeFiLlama data, Solana beat all other chains for the fifth consecutive month to generate the most decentralized exchange (DEX) volume in crypto, with $109 billion.

Solana’s monthly DEX volume was 24% higher than that of the second-highest chain, Ethereum’s $88 billion, and over 300% higher than that of the third-highest chain, Arbitrum’s $25 billion.

Much of Solana’s DEX volume came from its top protocols, Raydium, Meteora, and Orca. Raydium, Solana’s premier automated market maker (AMM), generated $41 billion in DEX volumes. Decentralized exchange and liquidity provider Meteora brought in almost $25 billion, while DEX and AMM Orca brought in almost $22 billion.

However, combining Ethereum’s DEX volume with DEX volume on its top Layer 2s (Arbitrum, Base, and OP Mainnet) adds up to $149.504 billion, making it the largest ecosystem by trading activity.

Solana’s app revenue also exceeded all other chains combined, capturing 54% of the market and generating $285 million, according to Solana Floor.

Memecoin Decline

Solana’s bubbling memecoin sector has declined in the past month due to a series of scam launches, such as those launched by Libra, Melania, and Trump. This has caused its token price to fall by over 30% in the same period, according to CoinGecko data.

There’s no more significant evidence of this decline than the sharp reduction in Pump.fun token launches. According to Dune Analytics data, the number of graduating tokens (tokens that reach a $100,000 market cap) on the platform has reduced greatly, falling from 24,008 in January to 11,906 in February.

“The number of tokens been launched daily are also falling off a cliff. Similarly, the overall Pump.fun volume on a weekly basis looks like death sitting at levels previously seen in September 2024,” nooman.eth said.

Still, even as memecoin trading declined, the overall trading volume within the ecosystem was not affected, likely due to stablecoin dominance and DeFi resurgence. CoinGecko data shows that AI tokens like FLAME have been the top gainers on Solana in the past day.