Price plunged 33%...Messari: "Solana breaks all-time high in daily transaction volume"

▲ Solana (SOL)

Despite the price decline in the virtual asset market, a specific blockchain network has proven its robust fundamentals by breaking an all-time high in daily transaction volume.

According to crypto media outlet Crypto Potato on May 24 (local time), Solana (SOL) saw its price drop by 33% in Q1 2026, closing at approximately $83. However, a Q1 Solana status report released by virtual asset research firm Messari shows significant indicators different from the price chart. While dollar-denominated figures generally decreased, the network's daily transaction volume set a new record. The market capitalization of real-world assets grew to over $2 billion, and validator revenue remained nearly unchanged.

The most noteworthy metric in the report was the average daily non-vote transaction volume, which reached an all-time high of 112.6 million. This represents a 50% increase from the previous quarter and a 15% increase over the previous record set in Q2 2025. Chain GDP, a term Messari introduced for total application revenue, recorded $342.2 million. This was a marginal increase from the previous quarter's $341.8 million, maintaining a nearly flat level.

Pump.fun maintained its position as the top single revenue source, earning $124.7 million, a 17% improvement from the previous quarter. Trading application Axiom ranked second with a 36% surge to $42.4 million. Bags, a user partnership launchpad, saw a 1,347% surge in revenue to $11.5 million, driven by increased memecoin trading connected to open-source AI projects. However, Bags' revenue plummeted by 85% month-over-month in February, indicating a rapid cycle of asset activity.

Total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance decreased by 22% from the previous quarter, reaching $6.16 billion. This figure reflects the decline in virtual asset prices and is not related to user outflow. Solana's share of the overall decentralized finance market remained nearly unchanged, moving from 6.9% to 6.7%. Kamino reclaimed the lead with $1.72 billion, surpassing Jupiter's $1.69 billion. Drift suffered an exploit loss of $285 million due to a social engineering operation by North Korean-linked entities. The real economic value, which refers to fees paid to validators, decreased by 1% to $89.5 million, ranking second among all networks after Hyperliquid's $156 million.

The most prominent growth sector in the Solana ecosystem during Q1 was real-world assets. The market value of Solana-based real-world assets grew by 43% from the previous quarter, reaching $2.01 billion. BlackRock's tokenized money market fund BUIDL doubled in size to $525.4 million after custody support from Anchorage Digital. Ondo Finance launched over 200 tokenized US stocks and ETFs, and even tokenized stocks on the day of BitGo's NYSE IPO. While stablecoin market capitalization remained just under $15 billion, USDC decreased by 21% to $7.83 billion but still held the largest share at 53%. In contrast, USDT increased by 34% to $2.89 billion, and World Liberty Financial's USD1 surged by 473% to $883.5 million due to Binance's customer asset redistribution.

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