More than 60% of the volume increase was recorded on decentralized exchanges in May on
More than 60% of the increase in decentralized exchange volume in May was recorded on the Solana blockchain, according to data compiled by venture capital firm Pantera Capital.
Behind this growth is a monolithic architecture, Pantera said in a June 20 report, describing the network as the macOS operating system for blockchain.
Solana’s share of DEX volume increased from 0% in early 2021 to 24% in May 2024, thanks to an approach similar to Apple’s macOS architecture that integrates hardware and software for superior performance. According to Pantera, Solana’s architecture has enabled an increase in retail activity over the past few months:
“Solana’s monolithic architecture has a product roadmap focused on improving every component of its blockchain, similar to Apple’s approach with its vertically integrated hardware and software stack in macOS.”
Pantera is one of the investors in the Solana blockchain. Earlier this year, the venture capital firm raised money for a new fund that aims to purchase up to $250 million worth of Solana (SOL) tokens from bankrupt FTX at a deep discount.
The network’s unique active addresses increased from 14,000 in October 2020 to nearly 1.3 million in May 2024. As a result, priority fees on Solana skyrocketed from less than $100,000 per month in mid -2023 to over $60 million in March 2024. report notes.
Solana’s architecture has also made it a popular choice for developers working on memecoin and decentralized infrastructure (DePin) projects. Since January, the network has seen an increasing volume of new cryptocurrencies, overtaking other chains such as BNB, Ethereum and Polygon. The report states:
“As of May 2024, Solana had captured 85% of all new tokens appearing on DEX platforms, up from 50% a year earlier. “This increase in Solana-based tokens reflects their strength in hash usage, driven by memecoin activity.”
Solana’s performance also affects its SOL token. According to CoinMarketCap, the price of SOL has increased by over 723% over the past year and is trading at $123 at the time of writing.
Are network outages a thing of the past?
The Pantera report does not address challenges the network has faced in recent years, such as Solana shutting down due to technical issues. The most recent outage, which occurred on February 9, interrupted service for approximately five hours.
Solana’s Firedancer upgrade, scheduled for full release in 2025 with “shortened versions” rolling out before then, is expected to improve network resilience. The upgrade, an independent validator client in development with Jump Crypto, aims to increase Solana’s overall reliability and scalability as activity increases.
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