Solana Outpaces Ethereum With $124B Memecoin-Fueled DEX Explosion

• Solana’s Raydium DEX has recorded higher 30-day trading volumes than all DEXs on Ethereum combined.
• Memecoins dominate trading activity on Solana.
• Pump.fun token transactions have accounted for over half of all Solana DEX transactions since Aug. 2024.

Solana-based (SOL) decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are relishing in the absurd demand for memecoins and recorded over $124 billion in trading volumes so far for November, double that of its closest competitor, Ethereum (ETH).

But, for how long can memecoins and Pump.fun token launches prop up Solana’s heightened network activity?

Solana DEXplosion

As per DeFiLlama, Solana’s DEXs have seen their transaction volume  more than double in a month, climbing from October’s total of $52.5 billion to a gigantic $124.09 billion in the last 30 days.

Leading Solana DEX, Raydium, has handled the lion’s share, capturing an eye-watering $80.42 billion of those volumes in the past 30 days.

Raydium alone has seen higher trading volumes than the entirety of DEX’s on Ethereum ($66.95 billion) and double that of Coinbase’s Base network ($42.78 billion).

Orca DEX, another leading Solana exchange, recorded $22.02 billion in 30-day volumes, followed by Lifinity with $10.63 billion. The third-best performing DEX, Lifinity, posted $10.63 billion in volumes.

For comparison, Ethereum’s top-performing DEX is Uniswap (UNI), which recorded $48.54 billion in 30-day trading volumes. Aerodrome, Base’s top DEX, accounted for $25.2 billion in trading volumes this month.

Ethereum vs. Solana

As of Nov. 1, DeFiLlama data shows that Solana DEX’s volume dominance stood at 35.63% , far outpacing Ethereum’s 18.66%. Since the beginning of the year, Solana DEX has averaged under 20% of the volume share.

Solana DEXs then flipped ETH DEXs for the first time in July and have since wrestled back and forth for dominance. Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT), Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY), and the AI-driven Goatseus Maximum (GOAT) have been standout successes this month.

Considering that Solana’s Pump.fun has fueled this memecoin mania and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down one bit, it’s safe to say that come Dec. 1, Solana DEX volumes will report an even higher share of the market.

However, this momentum may not be sustainable in the long term.

Pump.fun Dominance

The “success” of memecoins on Solana is hard to quantify. Indeed, the most successful of these tokens are drawing quite literally billions of dollars to the network, driving SOL trading volumes and its market cap to new highs throughout the year.

However, an increasing majority of them completely fail.

It’s a little concerning considering that Pump.fun, the platform supplying an average of 50,000 new memecoins a day to the ecosystem, accounts for more than 60%  of all transactions on Solana DEXs since September.

These concerns are further intensified by Pump.fun’s growing reputation for numerous rug pulls, coupled with its increasingly disturbing livestream content, which has featured violence, death, and sexual acts as part of efforts to promote newly launched memecoins on the platform.

That said, the platform has just removed the controversial livestream feature.

Regardless, the content resulted in calls for the platform to be banned outright. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen, as the live stream feature is gone now. However, reputational damage may still exist.

Furthermore, this may actually cause a sharp decline in tokens launching on Pump.fun as users can no longer craft up heinous streaming content to promote their junk tokens.

Speculatively, if Pump.fun token contracts find themselves blacklisted, then the Solana ecosystem could face a serious liquidity crisis as users pull out, fearing their tokens could be next.

Though, that’s a worst-case scenario. With live streaming now removed from Pump.fun, it can hopefully do away with that better-forgotten legacy of content.