Solana’s Revenue Surpasses Ethereum’s Early Growth
According to a recent report from 21Shares, Solana (SOL) has generated $2.85 billion in revenue last year, outpacing Ethereum’s early growth. This significant milestone is a testament to Solana’s scalability and low-cost infrastructure, which has attracted a wide range of activities and use cases. Trading tools, in particular, have been instrumental in this growth, contributing $1.12 billion, or 39% of total revenue.
Platforms like Photon and Axiom, which offer faster swaps and advanced execution capabilities, have been key drivers of this growth. In January, during the peak of the memecoin craze, these platforms generated up to $260 million in a single month, with the network’s highest monthly revenue on record totaling over $616 million. Even after January’s surge, Solana continued to generate $150 million to $250 million per month, reflecting strong and sustained demand for its infrastructure.
Source: 21shares.com
Comparing Solana’s Growth to Ethereum’s
In comparison, Ethereum (ETH) generated far less revenue at a similar stage in its lifecycle. Between 2019 and 2020, about four to five years after its launch, Ethereum’s monthly revenue averaged less than $10 million, constrained by lower adoption, network congestion, and gas fees. Daily active addresses on Ethereum were around 400,000-500,000 during this period, well below Solana’s current 1.2-1.5 million.
Solana’s high throughput and extremely low fees have enabled it to capture a much wider range of activities earlier in its lifecycle. According to the 21Shares report, this comparison highlights how quickly Solana has scaled its ecosystem and monetized network activity. Although Ethereum was the pioneer of smart contracts and DeFi, Solana’s infrastructure has proven to be more scalable and commercially viable.
Future Developments and Upgrades
Looking forward, upcoming technical upgrades – including the Firedancer validator client and Alpenglow finality improvements – will further increase throughput and reduce transaction times, enabling Solana to handle even larger volumes of activity. These developments will solidify Solana’s role as a scalable and commercially viable digital economy.
As the report concluded, “Solana’s story is no longer about resilience, but rather readiness. Its ecosystem has evolved from potential to execution, with real-world use cases now fully operational.” With its strong growth and increasing adoption, Solana is poised to continue playing a major role in the digital economy. For more information, visit https://crypto.news/solana-beats-ethereum-with-2-85b-in-yearly-revenue/
