Solana Emerges as Onchain Payments Powerhouse—Speed, Low Fees, and Big-Name Deals Seal the Deal
Move over, legacy rails—Solana’s blockchain is eating payments for breakfast. With sub-second finality and fees cheaper than a bank’s ’maintenance charge,’ its tech stacks up where others stall.
Visa’s stablecoin pilot? Check. Shopify merchants onboarding? Done. The network’s scaling like a fintech unicorn on espresso, while Ethereum L2s still argue over gas economics.
Wall Street’s watching through monocles, of course. Because nothing terrifies TradFi quite like a system that actually works without their 30% vig.
Solana had $364.34 million in transaction volume for the first two months of 2025 (Source: 21 Shares)
This has led to a comparison between the two, with experts saying Solana could become Nasdaq onchain.
The report stated:
“Solana is now the most-used network in the world, boasting over 100M monthly active users. At its peak in January and February 2025, Solana processed $364B in volume-more than half of Nasdaq’s exchange volume.”
21 Shares analysts added that this performance aligns with the network growth trajectory since emerging from the ashes of FTX collapse. Since then, the network has seen a surge in almost all metrics, with capital deployed soaring more than 2,000% to almost $7 billion, while its native token SOL peaked at $263 earlier this year.
Interestingly, stablecoin activity on the network has also increased substantially, growing 600% in the last 12 months from $2.16 billion to over $12 billion.
What is driving Solana’s growth
Meanwhile, the report focused extensively on the factors driving Solana’s growth over the past two years, noting that its infrastructure, transaction speed, and low fees are among the reasons.
In comparison with other networks, Solana’s average block time of 0.44 seconds is only bested by Sui, with 0.21 seconds among the major smart contract networks. The blockchain can also handle up to 65,000 transactions per second and has an average transaction fee of only $0.03
However, the reason for the network’s growth extends beyond its infrastructural capacity, given that emerging networks such as sui can rival it in this area. Its success is also a testament to its user experience and focus on partnerships.
The report stated that Solana’s strategic partnerships with enterprises are also crucial to its performance. These partnerships with PayPal, First Digital, Visa, Stripe, and Shopify mean millions of users rely on the network settlement capacities.
It said:
“Solana’s technical supremacy and enterprise partnerships cement its role as the backbone of next-gen payment systems and retail-focused blockchain adoption.”
Additionally, the report noted that more developers are building on Solana, pointing to the 83% growth in its developer base last year. This marks the first time another network will beat ethereum in new developer growth.
With developers building on Solana, the network has seen an influx of new products in all categories, such as decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), AI, and memecoins. The report particularly highlighted memecoins as a growth catalyst and ultimate stress test for the network.
What is next for the SOL price?
Meanwhile, 21 Shares analysts believe that SOL might be undervalued, with its fair value between $520 and $1,800, depending on the growth rate. This estimate is based on a discounted cash FLOW model.
It said:
“Though based on TradFi valuation principles, which may not fully translate to crypto, this approach underscores Solana’s intrinsic value through real revenue generation.”
With these estimates, the firm believes that SOL value could grow significantly, especially as it attracts more activity and increases on-chain activity.
However, Solana is not expected to flip Ethereum in the market cap anytime soon, even if its growth trajectory impacts Ethereum’s dominance. At the time of the report in late April, SOL was trading at $152.72, and its market cap was around 34% of Ethereum’s.
Since then, both assets have seen substantial growth in value, with SOL now worth $182.51 while ETH has increased by 50% in the past seven days to $2,692.
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