Will Solana Flip Ethereum in 2025? Revenue Numbers Reveal a Disturbing Trend
Solana's revenue surge sparks a serious question: is the 'Ethereum killer' finally gaining real teeth?
The Layer-1 race just got a fresh injection of drama. Forget the tired old narratives—this isn't about vague promises or developer hype. It's about cold, hard numbers flowing through the network, and they're painting a picture that's making some Ethereum maximalists shift uncomfortably in their seats.
The Fee War Heats Up
Blockchain revenue—the fees users pay—acts as the ultimate stress test. It measures real economic activity, not just speculative trading. When that metric starts climbing, it signals something fundamental: people are actually using the chain, not just gambling on its token. Solana's recent figures suggest it's moving beyond meme coin mania and attracting serious applications that demand—and are willing to pay for—throughput.
Beyond the Hype Cycle
Ethereum isn't standing still, of course. Its ecosystem remains the deepest and most diverse, the go-to destination for institutional DeFi and massive NFT drops. But dominance breeds complacency, and high fees have long been its Achilles' heel. Solana's architecture, built for speed and low cost, is directly attacking that weakness. It's not trying to beat Ethereum at its own game; it's changing the rules entirely.
The Scaling Showdown
The real battle isn't for today's market share, but for the next wave of adoption. Can Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap deliver a seamless, cheap user experience fast enough? Or will Solana's monolithic approach, despite its past stumbles, prove to be the smoother on-ramp for millions? The revenue trends are a leading indicator, a canary in the coal mine for where developer momentum and user loyalty might migrate next—because in crypto, capital flows follow utility, at least until the next narrative flip.
One cynical finance jab? Watching this play out is like seeing two hedge funds argue over who has the better golf club membership while the course is being washed away by the tide of user experience. The chain that makes blockchain invisible will ultimately win.
So, will Solana flip Ethereum? The revenue says the gap is closing. The market cap says there's still a mountain to climb. But in this industry, mountains have a habit of moving overnight.
Solana On Course To Flip Ethereum In Yearly Revenue
In an X post, the solana treasury company DeFi Development Corporation (DFDV) revealed that SOL is on course to surpass ETH in annual revenue for the first time. The company stated that this is not just a milestone but “instead a regime shift.” DFDV added that SOL stands as the revenue chain, where the decentralized applications (dApps) of tomorrow will live, scale, and breathe.
The accompanying chart shows that SOL has recorded annual revenue of $1.4 billion year-to-date (YTD), while the Ethereum network has recorded $522 million. As DFDV noted, this marks a significant shift, given that ETH surpassed SOL in previous years. In 2024, Ethereum recorded an annual revenue of $2.5 billion, while SOL recorded $1.42 billion.
Notably, Ethereum’s revenue is down around 90% in 5 years, while Solana’s revenue has increased around 5,000% in the same period. DeFiLlama data shows that dApps such as Pump.fun, Axiom, Meteroa, Jupiter, and Phantom have actively contributed to the revenue recorded on SOL. Meanwhile, the network has also generated base fees paid by users.
Commenting on this milestone, Solana’s co-founder stated that it has been a “crazy year” and noted that whether open permissionless protocols can actually grow and maintain revenue remains an open question. Yakovenko further remarked that he believes the entire crypto market cap will continue to grow and, eventually, will have to be split by revenue.
He also stated that Solana and Ethereum’s only shot at this is in the execution layer. Yakovenko explained that providing the best execution layer will mean global decentralized, low-latency, and high-throughput censorship resistance.
“SOL Is Dying”
Amid Solana’s revenue milestone over Ethereum, DeFi maxi Scribbler has declared that Solana is dying. In an X post, he noted that over 30 million people were trading on the network each month between November last year and February this year. However, since then, the network has struggled to average 1 million traders monthly.
This is likely due to the slowdown in meme coin trading on the SOL network, which gained it a lot of traction last year and at the start of this year, when U.S. President Donald Trump launched his meme coin, TRUMP. However, crypto commentator Marty doesn’t believe that this is the end for Solana, stating that equity traders and stablecoin users will replace the meme coin traders.
Notably, Galaxy Digital and Forward Industries have tokenized their stocks on SOL, while the network is also seeing increasing activity in stablecoin transactions. Visa just recently announced plans to begin USDC stablecoin settlements on Solana for U.S. banks.
