I asked someone recently, “What’s the most remarkable thing about the Solana ecosystem?” Here’s what he said:
Oh meme coins and PumpFun, right?
No, don’t smirk… if I asked you what you knew about Solana, your answer would most definitely be “meme coins,” “PumpFun,” or maybe based on more recent events, “Pengu airdrop.”
No, it’s not your fault, it’s more like that’s what the prevailing narrative has been about the ecosystem. This sentiment is more than backed up by Messari’s State of Solana report for Q3, 2024 which shows that Solana’s average daily DEX volume has continued to rise impressively since Q4, 2023. The most impressive increase by far was the $0.4B to $1.2B jump between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.
Why is this particular timing significant? Because it ties into PumpFun’s launch on January 19, 2024 —a direct indication of the impact PumpFun has had on the volume of transactions in the Solana ecosystem.
That’s not the only indication. According to Dexu.AI, the top 10 tokens in the Solana ecosystem by MarketCap are almost all meme coins (excluding stables, of course). And all of these tokens have enjoyed a massive price surge over the meme coin super cycle of last here. See here for context👇🏼
Source:
And it is also important to point out that Solana has been a hub for meme coin trading since way before PumpFun came into existence. OG tokens like $POPCAT and $BONK come to mind. Based on all this it’s easy to see why Solana has gained a reputation for being “The blockchain for meme coins.”
But is that all there is to the blockchain? That would be a huge NO!
Peeking Under The Hood
Solana is one of the most stacked blockchains currently existing performance-wise.
To start with Solana combines a unique consensus mechanism known as “Proof of History” with Proof of Stake (PoS) to deliver incredible performance largely unmatched in the current Web3 space.
Speed
To start with, Solana can theoretically handle up to 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), benchmarking it as one of the fastest L1s around. Just so you understand, this is way faster than Avalanche, Ethereum, BSC, Algorand, and Cardano combined!
In addition to this, Solana offers near-instant finality, making it an excellent choice for projects that require quick confirmation of transactions. A huge reason why the blockchain is so fast is its unique consensus framework that allows for the hyper-efficient rapid processing of large transaction volumes.
Resilience
But it’s not just that Solana is fast, the blockchain’s network is also very resilient, making it capable of handling significant load. $DOGS and $NOTairdrops caused outages in the TON blockchain because of the sheer number of demand placed on it by airdrop claimers. The number of people who received the airdrop was about 45 million and 35 million respectively.
$BONK airdropped to over 37 million users, making it one of the largest-ever airdrop events on Solana. Yet there was NO network outage recorded during the event. This clearly demonstrates that Solana is capable of handling the huge demand required by sectors like GameFi, AI and even RWA. We’ll get to that in a moment.
Reach
It’s also important to point out that despite being powered by SVM, Solana’s reach is near-boundless. This is thanks to its integration of interoperability protocols like The Rome Protocol, Wormhole, and LayerZero– a particularly significant development that connects Solana to over 70 other chains.
Correcting The Misconception
Now ask yourself: Is it possible that the only thing all this artillery is good for is launching and trading meme coins?
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Now you’re beginning to understand just how incredible Solana as a product really is. Memes may have hugely outshadowed utility plays on Solana but don’t make the popular mistake of assuming they are absent. Solana is still home to tons of innovative projects.
What I find particularly interesting is there are tons of innovative solutions already built on Solana and they cut across all of the major DeFi sectors. Here’s a walkthrough of each sector 👇🏽
#1. DeFAI
DeFAI is a newly-emerged sector in the DeFi ecosystem that focuses on integrating AI with core DeFi components in order to supercharge on-chain activities and operations. By this, I mean integrating AI with traditional DeFi tools and processes in order to arrive at a much more efficient product.
For example, trading bots have long been a staple in the degen trading landscape with tools like Bonkbot, Bananagunbot and so on. Now although these tools offer much better position entry and exit accuracy + speed, they still have a lot of limitations.
- They can’t research tokens and spot gems on their own
- They can’t set entry and exit targets themselves
- They rely on human input to carry out their functions.
A DeFAI improvement on this like Griffain’s Agent Dora is able to 100% autonomously scrape for data, develop key actionable insights, and take appropriate trading action. And guess what?
Other examples of projects in this category native to Solana include:
#2. DePIN
DePIN is short for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network. This is a DeFi sector that involves using decentralized/blockchain systems to deploy, manage, and operate physical infrastructure. The way this works is pretty simple: Protocols here usually offer incentives to users in exchange for them performing a specific action like running a node. Rewards are allocated based on participation in the network in order to drive the message that active participation will be rewarded.
DePIN has actually proved to be a revolutionary tool in improving existing Web2 systems and even breaking ground where Tradfi has failed. Some sectors where DePIN projects have made a name for themselves include the following:
- Data storage (Filecoin)
- Telecommunication (Helium)
- Energy (Power Ledger)
- IoT (IOTEX)
- Computing, and many more.
It will interest you to know that Solana is actually a treasure trove of DePIN projects. Almost all the biggest names in this sector are on the Solana blockchain. Examples include:
An excellent use case example of Solana DePIN projects doing crazily well is Helium Beacons using Starlink to successfully cell service for over 20 thousand Hurricane Helene victims in NC. Check it out here.
#3. DeSCI
DeSCI stands for Decentralized Science, and it’s one of the fastest-growing sectors in Web3. DeSCI projects work to apply blockchain technology to scientific research, with a focus on how scientific research is funded, conducted, published, shared, and accessed.
DeSCI is so important because it introduces the much-needed transparency layer into the field of scientific research, ensuring that all data from funding to peer review processes are transparent, immutable, and verifiable by anyone.
Examples of DeSCI projects on Solana include:
#4. RWA
According to Artemis.xyz, RWA was the best-performing sector in 2024.
This becomes even more astonishing when you consider that the meme coin supercycle that led to the birth of icons like $GOAT, $SUNDOG, $HIPPO, and $PNUT happened last year too!
Institutional players like Blackrock and Franklin Templeton have all identified real-world assets as the next logical evolution of TradFi and DeFi and they’ve been pouring billions of dollars into the sector. So this is definitely a sector worth paying attention to.
And it’s interesting to point out that a number of solid RWA projects are also present in the Solana ecosystem. Some examples include:
Other Notable Mentions
There are literally lots of incredible products in the Solana ecosystem so I definitely won’t be able to give you a walkthrough of every one of them. The best I can do is provide you with 10 more project recommendations I think you should take a look at… you’ll be surprised:
- Vodra – vodra.io
- Moonwalk Fitness – moonwalk.fit
- SendAI – solanaaihackathon.com
- Top Hat AI – tophat.one
- Solana Mobile – solanamobile.com
- EnsoFi – __a__pp.ensofi.xyz
- Sponge – app.spongehq.xyz
- Bullet – projectbullet.xyz
- Hivemapper – docs.hivemapper.com
- Save – save.finance
Taking all that I’ve said thus far into account, this is my thesis: Solana has too much quality to be relegated to a “meme coin chain” narrative. We’ve already seen several incredible products, some of which I’ve highlighted already. There will be more. You have no idea what’s coming.
