The Solana blockchain has experienced significant growth in its ecosystem, driven largely by a substantial rise in the market value of its stablecoins. According to data from DefiLlama, a decentralized finance analytics platform, Solana's stablecoin market cap has now reached $10.7 billion.
Historically, the highest collective stablecoin value on Solana was about $6.259 billion, recorded in June 2022. However, between December 2022 and January 2024, this figure fell below $2 billion, in part due to the prominence of its competitor, Ethereum, which saw stablecoin market caps reaching as high as $101 billion. During this time, Justin Sun's Tron also reported an increase from $31 billion in June 2022 to nearly $50 billion at the beginning of 2024.
Despite the dominance of Ethereum and Tron, Solana's recent ascent is noteworthy. In the past week alone, while the stablecoin values on Ethereum and Tron rose by just over 1%, Solana impressed with a 77.45% increase, surpassing the $10 billion benchmark and achieving a new record.
Solana's technical capabilities are also under examination, with the network reportedly handling approximately 350 million transactions daily, generating $50 million in fees, which annualize to $19.4 billion. Unlike Ethereum and Tron, where Tether dominates the stablecoin space at 98.3% and 56.3%, respectively, Solana's leading stablecoin is USDC, comprising 77.2% of its market cap.
Over the past week, $3.75 billion worth of USDC was issued, bringing its total to $8.26 billion. USDT stands slightly below $2 billion on the network, with PayPal's PYUSD a distant third at $150 million.
Analysts attribute Solana's rapid expansion primarily to trading in meme coin pairs involving USDC and USDT. This surge coincided with the introduction of tokens by U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania on the blockchain.
The Official Trump (TRUMP) coin captivated the market over the weekend, achieving a staggering market cap of $15 billion, and temporarily overtaking both Pepe and Shiba Inu to become the second-largest meme coin by market cap. However, the launch of the Melania Meme (MELANIA) interfered with TRUMP's progression, causing its value to diminish by half within hours.
Currently, TRUMP is trading at around $36, with a market cap of $7.25 billion, ranking it as the 29th largest cryptocurrency. MELANIA, on the other hand, has decreased by 24% in the last 24 hours, trading at $2.79. This meme coin excitement has also impacted Solana's SOL token, which increased in price by 18%, hitting a new all-time high of $270.