Ethereum competitor Solana recently witnessed a surge of trading on its decentralized exchanges (DEXs), briefly flipping Ethereum in 24-hour trading volumes.
This has been fueled, in part, by the recent successes of Solana-based memecoins such as Bonk (BONK), and dogwifhat (WIF), both of whom have posted major gains in the past month.
As per data from DeFi Llama , Solana DEX trading volumes overtook Ethereum for a moment between March 3 and March 4, 2024.
On March 3, 2024, Solana DEX volumes sat at $2.078 billion, overtaking Ethereum volumes which were then $1.827 billion. The next day, Ethereum had retaken the top spot, but just barely.
On March 4, 2024, Ethereum DEX volumes were $2.589 billion, with Solana not far behind with $2.487 billion. Now, that gap has widened significantly, as has the volumes, with Ethereum DEXs currently posting $4.837 billion in total trading volume versus Solana’s $3.174 billion.
A major contributor to this recent success is the ongoing rally that has seen Solana-based memecoins like BONK, and WIF post absurd gains in recent weeks.
As per data available on CoinGecko , WIF has posted a 24-hour trading volume of around $1.059 billion breaking its market cap past the $2 billion mark for the first time since launching just last year in December.
The BONK token is neck and neck with WIF with 24-trading volumes sitting at $1.055 billion, though its $2.113 billion market cap exceeds WIF by over $100 million.
That’s not to say that memecoin season is exclusive to the Solana network, According to data from Dune, the weekly trading volumes of Ethereum’s memecoin market are on a constant upward trajectory, highlighting a strong appetite for these rather odd crypto tokens.
As well as handling almost triple the trading volume of Binance’s BNB token, in another recent victory, the Solana (SOL) token briefly surpassed BNB’s market cap for the second time this year.
After taking fourth place from BNB yet again, BNB has retaken its position. At the time of writing, BNB commands a market cap of $63.58 billion, and SOL holds a market cap of $57.62 billion.
Though there remains a major gap between Ethereum and Solana in terms of number of users, market cap, and trading volumes, it is not improbable that SOL could indeed hit similar, if not better, market metrics than Ethereum in the long run.
But in order to first get there, SOL must dethrone its nearest competitor, BNB, which it already has beat in terms of 24-hour trading volume at the time of writing. To reach Ethereum’s level, SOL trading volumes would have to multiply by 5, and its market cap would need to increase tenfold.