Does this mean Solana season has begun?
Solana has emerged as the performance leader among Layer 1 (L1) coins with a 9.30% week-over-week increase.
According to Dune’s data for Jul. 27, Solana’s performance was the best against other Layer 1 coins over the past 7 days. XRP (XRP) ranks second with an increase of 4.74%, while Avalanche (AVAX) is in third place with a performance of 4.50% for the week.
In this article, we will explore why Solana season may be happening.
Solana is leading the way among the other L1 coins. Source: Dune
Is This Crypto Bull Run Going to Be a Solana Season?
Solana is a popular coin in the crypto market with a diverse ecosystem.
For example, Solana is developing in liquid staking. While the project is not yet close to dethroning a giant like Lido, Jito ranks fourth by Total Value Locked (TVL) among other liquid staking protocols with $2.226 billion. Notably, Jito’s TVL is up 31.60% in 30 days, while Lido’s is down 2.55%.
Ranking of liquid staking protocols by TVL. Source: DeFiLlama
We also covered the new liquid staking protocol Sanctum on Solana. One of its advantages is that it offers a pool that supports a large number of liquid staking tokens (LSTs).
Solana Is One of the Leaders in DeFi
The Solana blockchain is also a major player in decentralized finance (DeFi). According to DeFiLlama, Solana is ranked third in Total Value Locked with $5.539 billion.
Traditionally, Ethereum remains the leader of this ranking, with a TVL of $59.126 billion.
Ranking by TVL in DeFi. Source: DeFiLlama
Solana also leads among decentralized exchanges (DEX). According to Coin98 Analytics, Solana ranked first in DEX transactions over the past 30 days with 510 million.
In comparison, Base, which is second in this ranking, processed 38 million transactions in a month. Ethereum is in sixth place with 9.4 million transactions.
Blockchain ranking by DEX transactions in 30 days. Source: Coin98 Analytics
Solana Meme Coins
High transactions in DEX indicate that the blockchain, and likely the Solana token, is frequently used for transactions in DeFi.
For example, transaction growth could be driven by the popularity of web3 games or collections of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the blockchain.
In Solana’s case, such growth may be driven by the popularity of meme coins on its blockchain. One such popular coin could be Popcat, also known as the cat meme coin.
Notably, MUMU THE BULL (MUMU) has become one of the growth leaders among Solana meme coins. According to CoinGecko data, MUMU has grown by 434.9% in 30 days.
Meme coins could be a trigger for Solana season.