Key takeaways:
– Solana’s on-chain revenue strength in high-earning DApps helps cushion recent losses.
– Growing Ethereum layer-2 activity raises competition and keeps SOL vulnerable around the $80 support, risking a move to $75.
Solana’s native token, SOL, fell about 11% after being rejected near $93 last Wednesday and has lagged the broader crypto market this past week. The token has repeatedly probed the $80 support level, and a sustained decline in network fees over the last two months has increased the odds of a retest near $75.
On a TVL basis, Solana sits at roughly $6.3 billion compared with Ethereum’s $54.1 billion. Despite that gap, Solana collected about 80% more in network fees than Ethereum over the past 30 days. Part of the divergence stems from Ethereum’s incentive structure for layer-2 rollups, which use temporary data blobs to lower costs and shift some on-chain activity off the main chain.
Solana’s network fees dropped to $18.5 million in March — down about 42% from January’s $30 million — a decline driven mainly by weaker decentralized exchange (DEX) activity. DEX volumes on Solana slid to $55.5 billion in March, the lowest monthly figure since September 2024, according to DefiLlama.
Ethereum’s DEX volumes were approximately $41 billion in March, a 23% decline from two months earlier. When you combine activity on the major Ethereum layer-2 chains — Base, Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism — Ethereum’s share of DEX trading rises, reaching about 42% in March versus 33% in January. That growing layer-2 footprint intensifies competition for Solana and contributes to the bearish pressure on SOL.
Still, Solana’s DApp revenue mix provides some structural support for the $80 area. The chain leads peers in the count of applications generating at least $1 million in revenue over a 30-day period, with 13 such DApps versus 11 on Ethereum and four each on BNB Chain and Base. Protocols like Pump, Helium Network and ORE Protocol are among contributors to on-chain revenue that help attract users and capital even while DEX activity softens.
In short, falling DEX volumes and lower fees increase the risk of a decline to $75, but Solana’s crop of high-earning DApps and diversified on-chain revenue give the token a degree of support that could limit deeper losses.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. All trading carries risk; readers should conduct their own research. The publisher makes no guarantees about the accuracy or completeness of the information and is not liable for any investment outcomes.