Solana continued its impressive performance in December, benefiting from the surge in meme coins that enabled it to capture market share from Ethereum and other blockchain platforms.

As reported by DeFi Llama, Solana’s (SOL) protocols in the decentralized exchange sector were the most active throughout December.

The trading volume exceeded $97 billion, a significant increase compared to the $22.6 billion processed in the same timeframe the previous year.

Remarkably, this marked the third consecutive month where Solana outperformed Ethereum (ETH), which has been a dominant force in the industry for years. Ethereum’s protocols amassed over $74 billion in volume, while Base and Arbitrum recorded $42 billion and $37 billion, respectively.

Solana also performed exceptionally in November, with its DEX networks achieving a volume of $129 billion—surpassing Ethereum’s $70.6 billion. A month earlier, Solana handled $52 billion, compared to Ethereum’s $41 billion.

A significant portion of Solana’s DEX volume was driven by Raydium (RAY), a network that processed coins valued at $65 billion over the last 30 days. Orca contributed $24 billion, while Lifinity, Pump, and Phoenix each exceeded $5.93 billion in volumes.

The surge in Solana’s DEX volume can be attributed to the thriving meme coin industry, which has experienced significant success this year. Solana has attracted a multitude of meme coins this year, aided by the emergence of Pump, the largest token generator. Collectively, all Solana meme coins boast a market cap of over $14.1 billion, led by Bonk, Dogwifhat, Popcat, and Peanut the Squirrel.

This expansion has proven highly lucrative for Solana and its native applications. All Solana native dApps generated an all-time high of $365 million in revenue in November. Additionally, estimates from TokenTerminal indicate that Solana’s blockchain generated a record $725 million in fees in 2024, making it the third-most profitable chain, following Ethereum and Tron.

Both developers and users favor Solana for its significantly lower fees and greater throughput.

Meanwhile, Base, the layer-2 network launched by Coinbase, has emerged as a significant player in 2024, with total fees exceeding $82 million. It has established itself as the largest layer 2 network within the blockchain arena, having its DEX networks handle over $181 billion in assets, while its total value locked skyrocketed to $2 billion.