Raydium Storms Solana DeFi, Gas Fees Plummet Amid Meme Coin Exodus
Solana's DeFi landscape is shifting rapidly, with Raydium taking a massive 60% market share of decentralized exchange (DEX) activity. This dominance comes as overall DeFi activity cools off, and meme coins start fleeing towards Tron.
According to DeFiLlama data, the total value locked across major blockchains sits at $77 billion, with Ethereum still leading the pack but Solana making waves.
Raydium's user base is exploding, attracting over 200,000 active users daily, as per Artemis data. This dwarfs other competing protocols, and Solana's daily active addresses have hit an all-time high of 5.5 million on average.
Despite the impressive growth, gas fees are plummeting, hitting a six-month low of $414,000 on September 7. The drop in fee revenue is largely due to the decline of Pump.fun, a popular meme coin launchpad, which has seen its fees nosedive by over 80% since late July.
Meme coin enthusiasts aren't disappearing, though, they're simply moving house to Tron's new launchpad, SunPump. As one Solana developer joked, 'It's like musical chairs for meme coins.'