The Solana network showed signs of resilience in the first quarter of 2026, with application revenue remaining stable and tokenization activity accelerating even as its native token fell 33% and memecoin volumes declined, according to data analytics platform Messari.
Solana’s Core Revenue Holds as RWAs Surge Amid Price Weakness
19 May 2026 - 18:09 CEST
By Matt Neill
Total application revenue – or the revenue earned by applications built on the network – stayed essentially flat quarter over quarter at $342.2mn. Pump.fun, a Solana memecoin launch platform, drove much of this stability. It generated $124.7mn in revenue, up 17% from the prior quarter, and accounted for over one-third of total application earnings.
The performance proved sticky despite broader memecoin activity cooling. Over the past year, memecoin trading volume declined 10% on the network.
Trading applications revenue rose 40% to $79mn, driven by higher-velocity activity as average memecoin holding periods shortened to 57 seconds from 81 seconds previously. The trend raises questions about whether growth reflects deeper user engagement or simply faster turnover in a speculative segment often viewed as detached from long-term value creation.
RWAs gain traction with institutional backing
Real-world assets (RWAs) market capitalization on Solana rose 43% quarter over quarter to $2.01bn. RWAs are traditional financial products – such as money market funds, bonds or credit lines – tokenized and brought onchain for potential benefits like faster settlement, transparency and yield accessibility.
BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund, which invests in cash and short-term US Treasuries, led the way by reaching $525.4mn onchain. PRIME, a tokenized asset offering exposure to short-term financing of home equity credit lines, jumped 124% to $361.2mn after integration with Kamino, Solana's lending and automated liquidity protocol. The growth suggests rising institutional demand for onchain yield products, although the sector remains small relative to traditional financial markets.
DeFi TVL contracts with SOL price
The total value locked (TVL) on decentralized finance applications fell 22% to $6.16bn. The report attributed most of the drop to Solana's (SOL) price decline from $124.52 to $83.14 during the first quarter, rather than users leaving the network, with Solana’s share of industry-wide DeFi TVL holding steady at roughly 6.7%.
Kamino reclaimed the top spot with $1.72bn in TVL. It edged out Jupiter, a major decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator that helps users find the best prices across trading venues, at $1.69bn.
Real Economic Value – fees and maximal extractable value tips paid to validators – dipped just 1% to $89.5mn, keeping Solana second among blockchains.
The quarterly results build on longer-term trends. Solana’s 2025 network revenue hit $1.4bn, a 48-fold increase over two years, with stablecoin supply more than doubling over the period.
