Solana Overtakes Ethereum, Emerging Stronger DeFi Player

Ethereum and Solana have been locked in DeFi dominance battle and market data shows that there is a clear winner.

Solana managed to edge out Ethereum by DEX volume in Q1 2025 and it is on track to wind up April in the lead.

Solana DEX TVL in April reveals that it has so far maintained its lead. This is despite Ethereum’s attempt to secure a leading position, especially with the launch of Berachain and Sonic Labs.

The latter have been attracting robust volumes and even managed to outperform Ethereum layer 2 heavy weights such as Optimism and Polygon.

On-chain data indicated that Solana DEX volume recovered considerably since March. Its DEX volume in April has so far crossed the $50.7 billion mark, giving it a solid lead over Ethereum.

For context, the Ethereum blockchain’s DEX volume during the same period added up to $39.664 billion. This highlights Solana’s robust lead which may also shut down concerns about Solana being reliant on meme coins.

Solana Transactions Underscore Another Win Over Ethereum

DEX volume was not the only aspect through which Solana exerted dominance over Ethereum. The latter’s daily transaction activity ranged between 1.03 million transactions and 1.33 million transactions.

Meanwhile, Solana transactions were orders of magnitude higher compared to its rival. Its lowest daily transaction count recorded on Solana last week was 51.39 million transactions while the highest was 60.2 million transactions.

Solana’s dominant transaction count and DEX volumes suggests that it has been experiencing more utility compared to Ethereum. This observation may also explain other key developments such as SOL’s better bounce back compared to ETH.

Despite these observations, Solana still lagged behind Ethereum in some other aspects. For example, it had $9.574 billion in total value locked and $13.12 billion in stablecoin liquidity.

In comparison, Ethereum’s TVL was 5.7 times higher than that of Solana, while the difference between their respective stablecoin marketcaps was about 9 times.

The massive difference is because Ethereum had a huge head start as the first proof-of-stake network before the likes of Solana and Cardano and others joined the race. This also means Solana could potentially leverage more growth in the long term and potentially narrow the gap with Ethereum especially as far as marketcap is concerned.

Solana Crypto Price Recap

SOL pulled off an impressive recovery in the last 3 weeks with price surging by over 64% from its lowest to its highest price in April. It concluded last week with over 11% upside after a bit of a pullback from its weekly high.

The Solana crypto showed signs of bullish momentum exhaustion towards the end of the week. This resulted in price pulling back from its weekly high of $157 to its $148.73 press time price tag.

However, its pullback has so far been limited, suggesting that SOL holders might be holding on to most of their coins in anticipation of more recovery. Especially now that the market has been showing signs of more recovery, due to macro-economic pressures sizzling down.

The weak sell pressure was also consistent with declining spot outflows observed in April. Spot outflows last week were considerably lower compared the first two weeks of the month.

While demand has been cooling off, followed by some sell pressure, there was a noteworthy surge in appetite for options in the derivatives segment. Options volumes were up 245.47% in the last 24 hours.

Options open interest saw an 11.81% uptick during the same period. This was accompanied by a spike in positive funding rates. This suggests that the options volumes could indicate rising optimism that Solana crypto will continue rallying.

On the other hand, surging options open interest suggests that SOL could be sensitive to volatility. An extended decline could thus trigger a spike in long liquidations.

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