Buying and selling exercise on Solana’s decentralized exchanges (DEXs) is present process a structural shift as meme coin hypothesis fades and stablecoin transactions acquire momentum.
Information from Blockworks exhibits that meme cash accounted for greater than 60% of all Solana DEX exercise in late 2024 and early 2025. That surge pushed Solana’s buying and selling volumes to file highs, almost doubling Ethereum’s throughout the identical interval.
Meme Cash Now Account for Much less Than 30% of Solana DEX Quantity
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Nonetheless, that development proved unsustainable, as scandals and market mistrust shortly reversed the development.
The downturn started in February, following a string of controversies tied to token launches resembling LIBRA.
Earlier in January, initiatives like TRUMP and MELANIA had fueled a wave of speculative pleasure, inspiring dozens of imitators.
However frequent rug pulls and the collapse of LIBRA undermined retail confidence, resulting in a pointy contraction in buying and selling volumes.
By September, meme coin exercise had fallen beneath 30% of Solana DEX buying and selling, its lowest share since February 2024.
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Solana DEX Quantity Exercise. Supply: Blockworks
This retreat in meme coin hypothesis coincided with a steep drop in energetic merchants.
Dune Analytics information exhibits each day customers on Solana DEXs peaked at 4.8 million in January however slipped beneath 800,000 by September.
The exodus highlights how intently person engagement was tied to short-lived token frenzies.
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Merchants Flip to Stablecoins for Stability
In the meantime, stablecoin buying and selling has started to take the place of this hitherto wave of speculative exercise.
Blockworks information exhibits that swaps between SOL and stablecoins surged to just about 58% of DEX quantity, the very best stage since November 2023.
On the identical time, direct stablecoin-to-stablecoin trades additionally gained traction, now making up about 4% of exercise.
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Collectively, they mark a rising shift towards property favored for liquidity and decrease volatility.
Certainly, the Solana stablecoin ecosystem has expanded to a peak of greater than $12 billion from the $5 billion recorded originally of this 12 months.
This transition means that Solana’s ecosystem is maturing past its meme coin growth. Merchants seem to gravitate towards stablecoins as safer, extra versatile devices—whether or not for hedging, funds, or institutional methods.
Market observers famous that this means that whereas the hype cycles of speculative tokens could proceed to punctuate Solana’s development, the community is steadily constructing a extra sturdy basis round secure, broadly adopted property.
