If the demand for Memecoins cannot be sustained, Solana's economy may face certain challenges.

Author: MONK

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

(This article summarizes the key points of Messari's latest report.)

Recently, discussions about whether Memecoins are "dying" and whether this will put Solana in trouble have intensified. Next, I will answer you with data.

Since the $LIBRA incident, the trading volume of Memecoins on Solana has dropped to its lowest level this year.

However, it is worth noting that the current trading volume is still higher than the levels at the beginning of 2024, which does not mean that Memecoins have exited the historical stage.

What I really want to emphasize is the extent to which Solana's economy relies on the support of Memecoins.

Solana's economy relies on Memecoins: Risks and Current Situation

Solana's economy is essentially transaction volume-driven.

If we observe the leading applications ranked by revenue on Solana, we find that these applications are almost all protocols that facilitate trading activities in some way.

This can be verified by the strong correlation between daily DEX trading volume and application revenue.

This model is not uncommon in today's high-throughput blockchains. For example, Base's economy also largely operates on a transaction volume basis.

In contrast, the revenue of Ethereum's mainnet comes more from applications driven by Total Value Locked (TVL), such as lending and mining yields, mainly because trading activity on the mainnet has significantly decreased.

However, it is worth noting what the core factors driving this trading volume are.

On Solana, a large amount of trading activity comes from Memecoins.

But it is concerning that the proportion of trading volume from Memecoins has become unusually high. For example, in February 2025, the trading volume of Memecoins accounted for 70% of the total trading volume on Solana DEX.

In contrast, Solana's competitor Base is gradually reducing its reliance on Memecoin trading volume, shifting towards more project tokens and trading pairs priced in mainstream assets:

Why is this a problem?

First, Solana's Memecoins are highly volatile, and the sustainability of these Memecoins remains in question.

More importantly, researchers, investors, and the Solana Foundation have been emphasizing the growth of application revenue and "on-chain GDP." Solana's application revenue has indeed grown rapidly and remains one of the best indicators of user activity.

However, when we delve into the main sources of this revenue, we find that the most profitable businesses on Solana are actually relying on Memecoins for profit.

For example, the two highest revenue-generating areas on Solana are Telegram trading bots and Launchpads (e.g., pump.fun).

These two areas together contribute over 60% of Solana's application revenue, with an annualized revenue exceeding $3.3 billion.

The core of these businesses is Memecoins.

The interdependence in Solana's application economy further exacerbates the risks of Memecoin trading volume.

For instance, Pump relies on Raydium, which in turn relies on Jupiter, followed by Photon and Jito.

This means that a single Memecoin transaction can simultaneously generate revenue for five different applications.

Thus, these applications that seem to be independent businesses are actually largely interdependent in terms of their revenue.

However, this cross-domain revenue is built on the current situation where 50%-70% of trading volume comes from Memecoin activities.

From a blockchain perspective, there is nothing inherently wrong with Memecoins. For Solana, this phenomenon is a natural result of its low-cost block space and early lead in on-chain user experience (UX).

Blockchains should essentially remain neutral to the types of activities.

Building an ecosystem around Memecoins is profitable, so many protocols have seized this opportunity.

In the future, other asset classes, such as decentralized IoT networks (DePIN), real-world assets (RWAs), stablecoins, and mainstream assets, may gradually replace the trading volume of Memecoins.

But for now, it is not an exaggeration to say that Solana is a "Memecoin economy."

This also means that if Memecoin trading volume experiences a significant contraction, it could trigger a chain reaction of declining revenues.

Why is this important?

Solana's development narrative has always revolved around the growth of fundamental metrics, which also support the performance of the $SOL asset.

However, in reality, these metrics are highly dependent on the Memecoin sector, which has a strong reflexivity (i.e., changes in trading volume amplify market volatility).

If we use these metrics to assess Solana's progress, then a collapse in Memecoin trading volume could turn a "growth story" into a "rebuilding story."

This would lead to a sharp shift in market sentiment, and restoring these economic activities could take a long time.

Of course, it is also possible that Murad's viewpoint is correct. If so, then disregard the above concerns.

In the long run, I remain optimistic about Solana's ecosystem. But in the short to medium term, if the demand for Memecoins cannot be sustained, Solana's economy may face certain challenges.

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