Solana's revenue stream has matured at a pace that few in the industry expected and is now clearly outpacing Ethereum's initial growth trajectory.
From meme coin mania, DeFi, AI, RWA, and more, a new report suggests that Solana has succeeded in capturing several on-chain revenue streams that Ethereum was unable to monetize in its early days.
Solana initial growth curve
According to 21Shares, blockchain generated approximately $2.85 billion in revenue from October 2024 to September 2025, averaging approximately $240 million per month.
The peak during the period of active trading activity was found to be more than $600 million, reaching an absolute high point of $616 million in January 2025. This rally was primarily driven by meme coin mania, including coins like Trumpcoin. Even after the speculative frenzy subsides, Solana's monthly income remains in the range of $150 million to $250 million. Such sustained numbers proved that the chain's success was “not just a speculative flash.”
A closer look at the revenue mix reveals a highly diversified ecosystem. Trading applications such as Photon and Axiom contributed $1.12 billion, or 39% of the total, by facilitating faster swaps, advanced execution, and high-frequency activity.
Beyond trading, Solana's infrastructure supports a wide range of DeFi, AI, DePin, and tokenized real-world asset applications. Its architecture, capable of thousands of transactions per second at a cost of less than $0.01, effectively turns Solana into a 24/7 global “on-chain Nasdaq”, helping it rival established Web 2 companies such as Palantir ($2.8 billion in 2024) and Robinhood ($2.95 billion) in annual revenue.
perspective check
The contrast with nascent Ethereum could not be more stark. From 2019 to 2020, about four to five years after Ethereum's launch, monthly revenue averaged less than $10 million, which is less than 5% of the revenue Solana currently generates each month.
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In its peak months, Solana's revenue exceeded Ethereum's initial numbers by more than 50 times. While Ethereum's growth was limited by congestion and meager gas fee revenue in the early DeFi ecosystem, Solana leveraged high throughput and low fees to monetize a broader range of activities much earlier in its lifecycle.
Daily active addresses on Solana now consistently reach 1.2 to 1.5 million, compared to 400,000 to 500,000 in Ethereum's early days.
Solana's revenue growth is not linear. Just two years ago, total network revenue from October 2022 to September 2023 was just $13 million, according to 21Shares research. This can be attributed to early skepticism amid outages and market turmoil. However, the 220x increase over the past 12 months was the transition from an experimental blockchain to a commercially viable ecosystem.
Institutional investor interest soon followed. Currently, more than $3 billion of SOL is held on the balance sheets of public companies, with multiple financial initiatives underway by companies such as Forward Industries, Pantera Capital, and Brera Holdings.
