SOLANA VS ETHEREUMÂ
As cryptocurrencies evolved, countless projects emerged, all aiming to grab a huge share of the market. However, historically, aside from Bitcoin, Ethereum became the second most popular. It was launched way back in 2015 and has gone through many changes over the years, yet it managed to stay at the top of the altcoin space.
In 2020-2021, the trend of “ETH Killers” took off - blockchains that aimed to dethrone the king. During that time, many alternative solutions like Avalanche, Fantom, Near, and others were created. It was also then that the blockchain capable of posing real competition to Ethereum came into play - Solana.
Ecosystem overview
Since Ethereum was launched much earlier and was the first platform where smart contracts could be deployed, it’s obvious that its ecosystem would be much more extensive than Solana’s. In fact, Ethereum acts as a trendsetter for other blockchains, as new and innovative projects tend to appear there first. This was the case with the DeFi sector, which boomed in 2020 with the launch of Uniswap and other major players like AAVE and Compound. The same happened with NFTs when the first marketplace OpenSea, was launched.
Currently, the number of active dApps in the Ethereum ecosystem is measured in thousands of projects. DeFi is the main branch of development, as this blockchain was where the sector was born. Plus, it’s a great way to attract whales with significant funds, offering them various opportunities to generate income on their holdings.
On the other hand, Solana can be called the “people’s” blockchain, so its ecosystem is more developed in areas like gaming (gambling lol) and related fields (including NFTs). Over its existence, a large number of entertainment-focused apps have been created on this blockchain, such as StepN and Genopets, which were quite popular in their time. Now, there are efforts to develop DeFi products like Jito, Jupiter, and Kamino. Over the past year, Solana has also become a hub for memecoins, solidifying its position among retail users. It’s also worth noting that many DePIN projects have been built on this blockchain, such as Helium and Hivemapper, with Render recently migrating to it.
Comparative analysis of the metrics
The main indicator of a blockchain's attractiveness and growth is usually the total value locked (TVL). By this metric, Ethereum outshines Solana by more than 10 times.
When it comes to the number of active daily users, the situation is completely reversed, with Solana taking the lead.
As for the number of transactions, the situation is simply astonishing, with Solana having over 200 times more daily transactions.
In reality, such data is, first of all, not very valuable and, secondly, distorted by the huge number of different bots. The reason for this high bot activity are memecoins. For instance, sandwich bots target degens who aren't sensitive to a 5% price difference because they're aiming for profits of +500,000%. With so many people wanting to strike it rich on memes, they end up being a source of income for the bots.
Let’s untangle this a bit further. Solana generates around $2-4 million in fees daily, and about 50% of that comes from MEV bots.
Let's take a look at the activity on DEXs in both networks.
As we can see, Ethereum slightly outpaces its competitor. However, let's touch on the topic of memecoins again, specifically artificial volume or wash trading. If we go to the most popular DEX, Raydium, and filter the liquidity pools by volume, we’ll come across objects like the ones in the screenshot below, which indicate a lot of artificial volume and potential rugpulls. So, it’s not really worth presenting these volume figures as the truth.
It’s clear that the main motivation behind these actions is money. If it weren't profitable enough, no one would be doing it.
The huge popularity of wash trading is also backed up by one of the developers from the Solana infrastructure.
From this, we can draw a pretty straightforward conclusion: as long as the meme trend remains strong within Solana, we’ll keep seeing this incredible statistics. However, despite the huge popularity of its competitor, Ethereum continues to show stable, solid performance and is a less “toxic” blockchain. Of course, there are still issues with bots, artificial volume, and other factors, but they have lower levels of those problems, indicating a more sustainable network.
Right now, it seems that if the memecoin craze suddenly ends, Solana won’t have much to offer to keep users around.
Conclusions
We’re definitely looking at two giants in the blockchain space right now. However, it wouldn’t be fair to say they’re fierce enemies. On the contrary, they complement each other with their unique offerings for users, and the term "ETH Killer" definitely doesn't apply to Solana.
Both networks are popular among users, but they cater to completely different audiences. Ethereum acts like the wise older brother, with a solid user base that values security and stability. Solana, on the other hand, represents a kind of anarchy that has attracted hardcore degens and risk-takers hoping for quick profits.
Each blockchain is unique, with its own strengths and weaknesses. So instead of debating which is better or worse, we should see them as two parts of a whole.