Mac of blockchains? Solana will hold 60% of the new DEX in May

In May, a more than 60% increase in decentralized exchanges was recorded on the Solana blockchain, according to data compiled by venture capital firm Panthera Capital.

Behind this development is a monolithic architecture, Pantera said in a June 20 report, calling the network the blockchain macros.

Solana's DEX volume share rose from 0% in early 2021 to 24% in May 2024, with an approach similar to Apple's Macros architecture, which integrates hardware and software for superior performance. Like Pantera, Solana's architecture has led to increased retail activity over the past few months:

“Solana's monolithic architecture has a product roadmap focused on optimizing each of its own blockchains, similar to Apple's approach to a vertically integrated hardware and software stack in Macross.”

Pantera is one of the investors in the Solana blockchain. Earlier this year, the venture capital firm raised money for a new fund to buy up to $250 million worth of Solana (SOL) tokens from the bankruptcy state of FTX.

The network's unique active addresses have increased from 14,000 in October 2020 to nearly 1.3 million in May 2024. As a result, advance payments on Solana have exploded, from less than 100,000 per month in mid-2023 to $60 million in March 2024. He notes the report.

Solana's architecture makes it a popular choice for developers behind memecoins and decentralized infrastructure (DePin) projects. Since January, the network has seen an increasing volume of new tokens, surpassing other chains such as BNB, Ethereum, and Polygon. The report says:

“By May 2024, Solana will account for 85% of new tokens appearing on DEXs, up from 50% a year ago. The rise of Solana-based tokens reflects the strength in retail usage driven by memecoin activity.

Solana's performance is also hurting the SOL token. According to CoinMarketCap, the price of SOL has increased by more than 723% in the past year, trading at $123 at the time of writing.

Are network outages a thing of the past?

The Pantera report did not address the network's challenges over the years, such as Solana's downtime, among technical challenges. The last outage, on Feb. 9, resulted in nearly five hours of downtime.

Solana's FireDancer update, which is slated for a full version by 2025, is expected to increase the network's resiliency with “pared-down versions” released before then. The update, an independent authentication client under development by Jump Crypto, is intended to increase Solana's overall reliability and scalability as activity increases.

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