SOL remains bullish amid broader market stagnation

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Solana looks surprisingly bullish, considering the broader crypto market continues to flirt with bearish stagnation.

We’ve seen SOL surge around 30% compared to the US dollar over the past seven days (and up 20% against ETH, reaching its highest-ever weekly close on the SOL/ETH pair). Solana also just reclaimed the #1 spot in seven-day DEX volume, edging out Ethereum with a peak near $130b.

That’s the highest we’ve seen since early January. And yet, network fees have plunged 97% since the start of the year, and total DEX volume is down 93% from Q1 highs. Paradoxical at a glance, perhaps, but easily explained by one word: compression.

Solana’s network throughput remains unmatched, but thanks to the fee market rollback, that scale doesn’t translate to protocol revenue. In fact, Network REV (transaction fees + tips) has flatlined at sub-$50m weekly levels after peaking above $200 million in January. This disconnect between usage and earnings may limit sustainable economic value for validators (unless we rebalance staking dynamics or fee incentives.)

However, we’ve seen a modest rebound on the application revenue side — especially from DePIN and DeFi. Total transaction activity also remains robust, hovering near 585 million weekly transactions.

Stablecoins are also a big deal this week. Circle minted another $250 million USDC on Solana, pushing the total monthly transfer volume of stables above $12 billion. That’s yet another all-time high. This trend suggests folks increasingly view Solana as the rails for dollar-based settlement, even with markets looking bearish.

And unlike previous cycles, this stablecoin growth appears sticky. The supply curve has steepened without the volatility-driven reversals seen on other chains.

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