Solana’s blockchain is having a moment in the spotlight

After a turbulent 2022, Solana (SOL) has made a stunning comeback – rising over 600% in 2023 and climbing into the top five cryptocurrencies (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider). Crypto traders on X (formerly Twitter) are buzzing about a potential “Solana Summer” revival, as SOL’s price and network activity soar in 2024 (Top Solana Influencers to Follow in 2024: Who Made the Cut? - DailyCoin). In fact, social media chatter around Solana’s ecosystem (especially its meme coins) recently spiked above average, dominating crypto discussions (LIBRA, Solana, and Melania discussions dominate social media buzz | Cryptopolitan). Many influencers and analysts have flipped bullish on Solana’s trajectory, noting how far the network has come. As Jared from Gate.io, I’ll break down why Solana is growing so fast, how it stacks up against Ethereum, and what’s next for this high-speed blockchain.

Crypto Twitter Buzz: Solana Back in the Spotlight

On crypto Twitter (X), the sentiment around Solana has turned overwhelmingly positive. Santiment data shows that Solana-related topics – particularly Solana’s memecoins – have been dominating social media discussions in recent months (LIBRA, Solana, and Melania discussions dominate social media buzz | Cryptopolitan). Traders are actively talking about Solana’s network and the rapid gains in some SOL-based tokens, signaling a strong buzz. Even the old slogan “Solana Summer” is making a comeback as enthusiasts anticipate Solana leading a new altcoin season.

Influential figures in the crypto community have taken notice. Some have even speculated about major developments like a potential Solana ETF, further fueling excitement (one viral post in mid-2024 touted rumors of a SOL ETF filing, declaring “Solana Summer baby!”). Whether or not such rumors hold truth, they underscore the heightened enthusiasm. As one crypto analyst quipped, “Rumors of Solana’s death have been greatly exaggerated,” referencing Solana’s resurgence after the FTX saga (Cryptoverse: Bitcoin is back with a bonk | Reuters). The overall vibe on social channels is that Solana is “on a tear” in 2024 (Top Solana Influencers to Follow in 2024: Who Made the Cut? - DailyCoin), with traders frequently comparing notes on Solana’s growth relative to other chains. From meme coin speculators to long-term crypto investors, everyone is buzzing about Solana’s momentum.

Recent Developments on the Solana Blockchain

Solana’s team and community have been hard at work implementing upgrades and improvements, and it’s paying off. In 2024, Solana’s network performance and reliability improved dramatically, shaking off the growing pains of earlier years. After suffering some high-profile outages in 2021-2022, Solana achieved near-100% uptime in 2024, thanks to validator software upgrades and network optimizations (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider). This means the chain stayed running consistently even under heavy load – a big confidence boost for users and developers.

At the same time, Solana continued to leverage its technical design for high throughput. The blockchain can handle up to ~65,000 transactions per second at peak capacity (far above Ethereum’s ~15 TPS) (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider). In 2024 alone, Solana processed over 400 million transactions (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider), showcasing its ability to support massive activity without breaking a sweat. Transaction fees on Solana remained negligible – averaging around $0.00025 per transfer (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider) – which is essentially fractions of a penny. These ultra-low fees and speedy confirmations make Solana extremely attractive for all kinds of decentralized apps (DeFi trading, NFTs, gaming, payments) where users demand a smooth, low-cost experience.

Crucially, the Solana ecosystem itself has grown stronger. Developer interest is surging again (the network’s active addresses grew ~50% year-over-year in 2024 (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider)), and new upgrades are rolling out. One notable innovation was the introduction of Confidential Tokens, an extension that can enable privacy for token transactions (Ethereum vs Solana | Messari). Solana’s infrastructure is also expanding with more validator nodes and higher decentralization – it now has over 1,700 validators securing the network with a Nakamoto coefficient of 31, indicating a robust level of decentralization (Solana (SOL) Blockchain Is Consistently Outperforming Ethereum (ETH) - Report | Crowdfund Insider).

Moreover, big players in tech and finance have started utilizing Solana. For example, payments giant Visa began settling stablecoin payments on Solana in 2023, moving millions of USDC via Solana’s network in pilot programs (Visa - Visa Expands Stablecoin Settlement Capabilities to Merchant Acquirers). This kind of integration by a household name highlights confidence in Solana’s speed and scalability for real-world use. Developers have also launched novel projects on Solana ranging from Web3 mobile phones (the Solana Saga device) to Solana Pay integrations for e-commerce. All these developments – better reliability, higher performance stats, ecosystem expansion – have reinforced the narrative that Solana is a top-tier chain ready for prime time.

Solana vs Ethereum: Gaining Ground in Activity and Adoption

A big part of Solana’s dominant narrative is how it stacks up against Ethereum, the longtime smart contract leader. By several key metrics of activity and usage, Solana is rapidly gaining ground on Ethereum – and even overtaking it. Consider user activity: in mid-2024, Solana’s daily active addresses exploded above 1.6 million, dwarfing Ethereum’s ~450,000 daily users at that time (Solana Flips Ethereum in Daily Active Addresses in June: CMC H1 2024 Report). More recently, as of April 2025, Solana reached around 4.4 million daily active addresses – more than 10× Ethereum’s ~0.39 million on-chain daily users.

In other words, far more people (or wallets) are actively using Solana each day than Ethereum’s base layer. The chart below illustrates this stark contrast:

Daily Active Addresses (April 2025): Solana has an order of magnitude more active users on-chain than Ethereum

This surge in usage also shows up in transaction counts. Solana routinely handles tens of millions of transactions per day, whereas Ethereum processes around 1 million (Solana vs. Ethereum: Investor’s Guide 2025 | CoinLedger). Users have been flocking to Solana for activities like trading, NFT minting, and gaming due to its fast, cheap transactions. Notably, during the height of the 2024 meme coin frenzy, a lot of retail traders who were priced out by Ethereum’s high gas fees found a home on Solana. In Q2 2024, Ethereum gas fees hit record lows partly because excitement shifted to Solana-based meme coins, reducing activity on Ethereum’s mainnet (According to CMC 2024 H1 | CoinMarketCap).

Transaction fees are indeed where Solana shines brightest in comparison to Ethereum. Even in normal times, using Ethereum can cost a few dollars (or more during congestion) per transaction, while Solana’s fees remain around $0.0001–$0.001. This difference is massive – you could do thousands of Solana transactions for the cost of one typical Ethereum transaction. From a user perspective, Solana’s near-zero fees make it ideal for high-volume or micro transactions (think trading many small tokens or in-game items) that would be uneconomical on Ethereum. Developers have taken notice too: Solana’s low fees and high throughput enable new app designs that aren’t feasible on Ethereum L1. (Ethereum is scaling via Layer-2 networks, but Solana offers a one-layer solution for now.)

To be fair, Ethereum still leads in some areas. The Ethereum ecosystem is more mature in terms of DeFi total value locked (Ethereum hosts ~80%+ of all DeFi TVL) and it still generates far higher fee revenue overall (According to CMC 2024 H1 | CoinMarketCap). Ethereum’s security and decentralization (with hundreds of thousands of validators post-Merge) are also considered top-notch. However, Solana’s recent gains suggest it is closing the gap in active usage and user growth. In fact, Solana’s share of active crypto users and new project launches has risen significantly. Over the first half of 2024, 147 new tokens were launched on Solana’s ecosystem vs 89 on Ethereum, indicating a faster expansion of projects on Solana (Solana Flips Ethereum in Daily Active Addresses in June: CMC H1 2024 Report).

Even some institutions are rotating into Solana. In April 2025, it was reported that Galaxy Digital (a major crypto fund) sold over $100M of ETH to buy nearly $100M of SOL – a striking vote of confidence in Solana over Ethereum (Hedge Fund Dumps Ethereum for Solana as ETH Price Drops 50% YTD | FXEmpire).

What’s Next for Solana: Upcoming Innovations and Events

Looking ahead, Solana’s developers and community are not slowing down. Perhaps the most anticipated innovation is Firedancer, a new independent validator client being built by Jump Crypto. Firedancer is essentially a complete rewrite of Solana’s node software in C++, designed to massively boost throughput and network efficiency. Early tests have been jaw-dropping – Firedancer developers demonstrated the ability to process 600,000 to 1,200,000 transactions per second in a lab setting (Solana Firedancer Goes Live on Testnet: Raoul Pal Predicts Bright Future). That is several orders of magnitude beyond any current blockchain, and even far above Solana’s already-high TPS. If Firedancer successfully rolls out (it went live on testnet in late 2023), it could turbocharge Solana’s performance and capacity. More importantly, having a second independent client increases Solana’s resiliency (no single point of failure in software) and decentralization. Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said the network could scale to “billions of users” with innovations like Firedancer.

Beyond Firedancer, there are other exciting developments on the horizon for Solana. The ecosystem is expanding into new verticals – for example, Solana is making a push into crypto-mobile with the Saga smartphone and Solana Mobile Stack for app builders. This could on-board mobile-first users and create novel use cases in 2024 and beyond. The Solana Foundation continues to host hackathons (like the recent Solana Summer Camp) that attract thousands of developers, hinting at an accelerating pace of DApp innovation. Upcoming upgrades to Solana’s core protocol are expected to further improve its speed and efficiency (such as quorum changes, fee markets, and state compression for cheaper data storage).

Several major events are also on the calendar. Solana’s annual conference, Breakpoint, usually held in Q4, is a venue for big announcements and ecosystem showcases – one to watch for new partnerships or product launches. On the adoption front, more Web2 companies are integrating Solana: after Visa’s stablecoin pilot, there are talks of other payment firms and even social media projects leveraging Solana’s rails (given its capacity to handle Twitter-like scale of messages as Raoul Pal noted). In short, the roadmap for Solana involves both software breakthroughs and growing real-world adoption. If execution stays on track, these upcoming developments could cement Solana’s status as a leading smart contract platform.

Fueling the Meme Coin Season with Low Fees and Fast Execution

It’s impossible to discuss Solana’s recent dominance without highlighting the role of meme coins. Solana became the unofficial home of 2023–2024’s meme coin frenzy, largely because its low fees and high throughput let traders ape into fun tokens without worrying about gas costs. During the height of meme season, Solana’s network activity went through the roof – over 62% of all DEX transactions on Solana in Nov 2024 were related to meme coin trading (thanks in part to platforms like Pump.fun that make launching tokens easy). Essentially, Solana provided a playground where anyone could mint and trade new meme coins almost for free, unleashing a wave of speculative mania that rivaled early DeFi Summer, but for memes.

Importantly, Solana’s infrastructure handled this influx smoothly. While Ethereum bogged down under meme coin congestion (recall how the PEPE coin craze in May 2023 sent Ethereum gas fees to yearly highs, pricing out many retail traders), Solana’s fees stayed near zero even as volumes spiked. This made Solana the go-to chain for meme coin degens seeking quick flips on dog-themed or joke tokens. One vivid example was BONK, a Shiba Inu-themed coin launched on Solana in late 2022. BONK airdropped tokens to the community and spurred such excitement that SOL’s price rallied 131% in early 2023 (at a time when Solana had been declared “dead” by skeptics). BONK rocketed 5,000% in its first week, and its success injected new life into the Solana community when it was needed most.

The trend continued into 2024 with a new cohort of Solana meme coins. In fact, Solana-based meme coins dramatically outperformed their Ethereum-based counterparts, delivering an average 8,469% return vs. 962% for ETH memes during the 2023–24 rally. That’s an 8× difference in gains – showcasing how Solana’s meme token traders enjoyed outsized profits. (Much of this was driven by a rush of speculative capital chasing Solana’s explosive meme tokens like BONK and others.) The chart below highlights this contrast in meme coin ROI between Solana and Ethereum:

Average Meme Coin Returns in 2024: Solana’s meme coins yielded astronomically higher ROI compared to Ethereum’s
(According to CMC 2024 H1 | CoinMarketCap)

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In essence, Solana was the fuel for meme season – its fast, cheap transactions allowed for rapid-fire trading and community-driven token launches that just wouldn’t have been feasible on a slower, expensive chain. This brought a surge of new users to Solana (many crypto newcomers cutting their teeth on Shiba Inu knock-offs and internet joke coins). It also demonstrated Solana’s capacity to handle viral moments in crypto culture. Meme coins may come and go, but they cemented Solana’s reputation as the chain where “the action” is – reinforcing network effects that continue to benefit more serious applications on Solana as well.

How to Buy Solana (SOL) on Gate.io

If you’re feeling bullish on Solana’s growth and want to get in on the action, buying SOL is easy – especially on Gate.io. As a leading crypto exchange, Gate.io offers a secure and user-friendly platform to acquire Solana’s native token. Here’s how to buy SOL on Gate.io:

1. Create or Log In to Your Gate.io Account: Sign up for a free account on Gate.io (it takes just a few minutes). Complete any required verification for security.
2. Deposit Funds: Once logged in, deposit funds into your account. You can deposit cryptocurrencies like USDT or use Gate.io’s options to deposit fiat and convert to USDT/USDC – which you’ll use to buy SOL.
3. Navigate to Solana (SOL): On the exchange, search for the SOL trading pair (e.g., SOL/USDT). Gate.io has SOL listed with ample liquidity.
4. Place a Buy Order: Decide how much Solana you want to purchase. You can place a market order (to buy instantly at the current price) or a limit order (to bid at a specific price). For beginners, a market order is simplest – enter the amount of USDT you want to spend and execute the trade.
5. Secure Your SOL: After your order fills, you’ll see SOL in your Gate.io wallet balance. You can hold it on Gate.io or withdraw to your personal Solana wallet for long-term storage. Either way, you now own Solana and can participate in its ecosystem!

Gate.io makes the process straightforward, with a robust interface suitable for both newbies and advanced traders. There are no hefty fees to worry about on the exchange side, and Gate.io does not charge high spreads – you get a fair market price for SOL. Plus, by using Gate.io, you avoid the network challenges of buying on-chain (no need to fuss with setting up a Solana wallet or swapping on a DEX for your first purchase).

Conclusion: Solana’s Momentum and How to Get Involved

Solana’s recent growth spurt and growing dominance in key metrics paint the picture of a blockchain ecosystem on the rise. From the upbeat chatter on crypto Twitter to tangible network stats (like millions of daily users and industry-leading throughput), Solana has proven its resilience and potential to rival even Ethereum in the next phase of crypto adoption. With major upgrades like Firedancer on the horizon and a thriving community driving new projects, Solana’s trajectory looks incredibly promising.

Investors and enthusiasts are taking note – and if you don’t want to miss out on “Solana Summer,” it might be time to take a closer look at SOL. Gate.io offers one of the best platforms to trade or accumulate Solana (SOL). As a trusted exchange, Gate.io lets you dive into the Solana ecosystem with confidence. Feel free to sign up, explore SOL markets, and even discover Solana-based project tokens listed on Gate.io. The Solana story is still unfolding, and whether you’re drawn by its speed, its booming ecosystem, or the fun of its meme coin culture, now is a great time to get involved.