In a particularly turbulent 2025, Solana (SOL) managed to come out on top. Is this enough to approach 2026 with optimism?
Solana, one of the heavyweights of 2025
Despite the ups and downs of the market in 2025, Solana has managed to attract a growing number of users. Last year, the blockchain boasted 98 million unique monthly users according to some estimates, placing it far ahead of some of its competitors. A total of 34 billion transactions are said to have been carried out via Solana over the last 12 months. This explosion has enabled Solana to compete with Ethereum in certain areas, including revenue. According to CryptoRank and Artemis Analytics, the blockchain generated $1.3 billion in revenue in 2025… More than Ethereum over the same period.
This increase in activity is mainly due to the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi), as well as a memecoin ecosystem that continues to be dynamic. As a result, Solana is expected to capture 26.8% of global blockchain traffic in 2025, according to data from MEXC.
Solana: Will SOL crypto explode in 2026?
Against this backdrop, SOL appears almost undervalued. Buoyed by the general rise in prices, it reached $255 at the beginning of October 2025, an all-time high. But the fall since then has been long: in three months, SOL has lost 55% of its value:
This gap between the network’s momentum and the price of SOL can be explained by several factors. On the one hand, it should be noted that fees are very low, so each transaction generates little value. Even with a large transaction volume, the value captured, which influences the price of SOL, remains limited.
Furthermore, the previous rise in SOL may have burned investors. Until October 2025, the price was driven by the memecoin boom and clearly speculative momentum. However, we can see that the slowdown in the latter led to the fall. New narratives will therefore probably be needed to drive the price up.
In other words, Solana remains a blockchain that is highly subject to cyclical enthusiasm, which does not favor more “institutional” positioning. Added to this is the thorny issue of “fake transactions”—some commentators believe that a large part of the volume is due to trading bots.
As a result, usage has exploded faster than Solana’s ability to capture value for its token.
At the same time, overall liquidity has normalized, resulting in record activity and a decline in price. So, will Solana manage to bridge the two? To do so, it will need to capture attention beyond cycles, as Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently doing.
