Much of the revenue was generated in November which topped $367 million or nearly $100 million more than the revenue generated in the entire previous quarter.

Application Revenue on Solana Shoots up 213%

Several so-called “Ethereum Killers” like Cardano and EOS have come and gone, but thus far, only Solana has given the “world computer” a run for its ultrasound money.

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX recently published a report that showed Solana had generated more than twice the decentralized exchange (dex) volume produced by Ethereum in 2024. Last week, crypto research shop Messari, published its Q4 2024 State of Solana report which also showed that Solana is overachieving across several metrics besides just dex volume, including revenue, total value locked (TVL) and liquid staking rate.

In fact, the network, once derided as a “venture capital (VC) chain” saw its applications rake in $840 million in Q4 last year, a 213% increase, with nearly half of that, $367 million, being generated in November alone.

(Solana Q4 2024 total app revenue / Messari)

In an interview with Bitcoin.com, Messari Research Analyst and author of the Solana report Matthew Nay, said he doesn’t see Solana’s progress slowing down. If anything, Nay predicts Solana will eventually eclipse the volume of economic activity seen on traditional stock exchanges.

“The high volume of memecoins is proving the thesis that you can make a decentralized NASDAQ,” Nay said. “When the Trump memecoin launched, I think the greatest twenty-four-hour period over that weekend was almost $40 billion in volume, and the NASDAQ does about $300 billion.”

Pump.fun Shines Once Again

In time, Nay’s prediction might just prove correct. Much of the $840 million in application revenue, or what he calls “chain gross domestic product (GDP),” came from just five applications, with Pump.fun leading the way. What is interesting about the popular memecoin launchpad is that it only takes transaction fees from tokens that have a market capitalization under $69,000. Anything above that threshold is transferred to Raydium’s dex platform.

(Top 5 Solana apps by revenue for Q4 2024 / Messari)

“Pump.fun generated $235 million in Q4,” Nay said. “So it’s crazy that Pump.fun was able to accumulate $235 million of revenue in Q4 from coins that are less than $69,000 in market cap.”

Raydium closed out the quarter with $74 million in revenue, representing a 268% quarter-on-quarter increase, according to Nay’s report, which is just under a third of what Pump.fun collected.

Addressing Solana’s TVL Issue

The knock on Solana has always been its lackluster TVL, especially when compared to Ethereum. While it’s great that the chain is generating so much revenue and activity, what happens when “memecoin mania” finally abates?

“Solana has done a great job in TVL,” Nay explained. “But when you compare it against Ethereum…it’s only a sixth of the TVL.”

Nay noted that while Solana’s TVL is indeed significantly less than Ethereum’s, it has the second highest TVL in the industry, ahead of every other network except for the Ethereum blockchain.

“I think a lot of it is just because of Ethereum’s place in history,” Nay said. “It has the history and the longer runway,” he added, pointing out the platform’s first mover advantage and network effects.

But despite Ethereum’s advantages, Solana’s second place metrics were still impressive, with total TVL growing 64% quarter-on-quarter to $8.6 billion, surpassing the Tron network in November.

(TVL for Solana Q4 2024 / Messari)

Life After Memecoins

Jito is a Solana liquid staking protocol much like Ethereum’s Lido, except that Jito users receive additional rewards because the protocol incorporates maximal extractable value (MEV) which involves validators arranging transactions in the most profitable sequence.

(Illustration of MEV / Flashbots)

Jito was the highest grossing application outside of Solana’s memecoin ecosystem and the network will likely need many more such applications to survive a substantial drop in memecoin activity.

“I think there will always be some sort of creator coin type of ecosystem,” Nay stated. “But getting away from memecoins, specifically in other apps…I think gaming will eventually have some sort of say on chain,” he added.

Nay, who is a lifelong gamer, presented Magic Block as a potential non-memecoin-related use case. The firm offers tools developers can use to create decentralized on-chain games. “If Solana is the best chain to trade assets, then there will be some sort of popular game on Solana,” Nay explained.

(Screenshot of Magic Block’s website / Magic Block)

He also provided other examples such as Parcl, which describes itself as a decentralized real estate trading platform and Kamino, a defi lending protocol.

“More of those opportunities will exist as the market matures,” Nay said. “I think these metrics that people are seeing and the amount of revenue you can make on Solana will be attractive to developers, and they’ll come build on Solana.”

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