Despite Memecoin’s slowdown, Pump.fun drives more than a third of Solana’s Q1 revenue.
Pump.fun was Solana's biggest revenue generator in the first quarter of 2026, pulling in $124.7 million, more than a third of the network's total app revenue of $342.2 million, despite slowing memecoin activity.
Memecoin's launchpad revenue increased 17% quarter-on-quarter, a sign that its core business is holding up, Messari said in Solana's Q1 report.
Launchpads generated $144 million in Q1, accounting for 42 percent of Solana's total app revenue. Wallets, a standout in the sector, saw their quarterly revenue jump 1,347% to $11.5 million, fueled by a wave of AI-themed memecoins in January. The increase was short-lived, with monthly earnings dropping 85 percent in February.
Solana income. Source: Masari
Major institutions such as BlackRock, Visa and JPMorgan are expanding their presence in the payments and tokenization ecosystem, and Solana is expecting memecoin revenue as the network attracts a wider range of users.
“Memecoins don't define Solana,” Solana Foundation President Lily Liu said in a recent interview.
Related: MoonPay Acquires DFlow, Adding Solana Trading Infrastructure
Marketing applications, RWAs thrive on Solana.
Marketing apps on Solana were the quarter's strongest growing sector, with total revenue up 40 percent to $79 million. Axiom led the pack with $42.4 million, making it the second highest grossing app on the network.
Elsewhere, Solana's real-world asset market value surpassed $2 billion, up 43 percent in the quarter, doubling to $525 million after BlackRock's BUIDL-led Anchorage Digital added protection support.
Defy's total value fell 22% to $6.16 billion, although Mesari analysts attributed the decline largely to SOL's 33% price cut rather than user withdrawals. The network's overall DeFi TVL share remained flat at 6.7 percent.
RWAs grow on Solana, fueled by institutional revenues. Source: Masari
On the infrastructure side, the focus is on Alpenlow, a broad consensus update aimed at the Agave 4.1 release. If shipped as planned, the update will reduce Solana's transaction latency from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds.
Related: Solana customers introduce post-Quantum Solution Falcon
Goldman Sachs withdrew from Solana positions
As Cointelegraph reports, Goldman Sachs has exited its Solana ETF position in Q1 2026, shedding funds from Greyscale, BitWise and Fidelity.
Italy's largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, nearly wiped out Solana's position in Q1 2026, reducing its stake in Bitwise's Solana ETF from 266,320 shares to just 2,817 shares, although it more than doubled its total crypto holdings to $235 million with the ARK 21 share.
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