Solana ended 2025 as essentially the most lively blockchain for decentralized exchange (DEX) trading, significantly overtaking Ethereum and BNB Chain as on-chain volumes remained high through the tip of the yr. Solana processed greater than $100 billion in DEX transactions in December, greater than double Ethereum's roughly $48 billion in the identical period. This was followed by the BNB chain with a monthly volume of about $58 billion.
Source: Defillama
The December numbers capped a five-month period during which Solana consistently led all blockchains in DEX activity. Over the second half of 2025, the network transitioned from short-lived volume spikes to sustained high-frequency trading, making it the dominant trading venue for decentralized swaps for the yr.
Ethereum is losing ground as activity becomes fragmented across layers
While Ethereum stays the biggest DeFi ecosystem by committed capital, its DEX volumes lagged Solana's at the tip of 2025 as trading activity spread across multiple Layer 2 networks. A growing share of Ethereum-based trading has shifted to rollups, diluting mainnet volumes and making direct comparisons less favorable. In contrast, Solana's monolithic design concentrated activity on a single base layer, keeping overall DEX volume high.
Although Solana lags behind in sales, Ethereum still controls greater than 67% of total DeFi liquidity, in comparison with around 6.13% for Solana.
Source: Defillama
Sustained DEX activity resulted in record economic performance for the Solana network in 2025. Protocol revenue trackers estimate Solana's annual revenue to be between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion, reflecting the whole fees generated across decentralized applications and validators. The figures are gross network revenue and never direct revenue from the Solana Foundation.
Daily trading volume often exceeded $3 billion in December, at the same time as overall crypto market participation waned toward the tip of the yr. On a monthly basis, Solana's DEX activity also exceeded that of specialised derivatives platforms akin to Hyperliquid, whose monthly volume averaged roughly $8 billion.
PumpSwap and HumidiFi anchor Solana’s trading dominance
Two platforms accounted for a major share of Solana's DEX growth in 2025.
PumpSwap expanded rapidly within the second half of the yr, becoming some of the lively decentralized exchanges on the network. On-chain data shows that the protocol generated roughly $584 million in fees annually, with trading volume reaching roughly $14.8 billion in December because of the ramping up of automated strategies.
HumidiFi also played a crucial role by offering dark liquidity pools designed to scale back slippage on large trades. The DEX reported a monthly trading volume of greater than $30 billion, making a major contribution to Solana's overall throughput. Activity on HumidiFi skewed heavily towards SOL and stablecoin pairs, strengthening liquidity across the ecosystem.
Source: Defillama
Even though meme token adoption slowed significantly from mid-year highs, Solana remained the first network for listing recent tokens. The exit of many short-term “trench” traders has not significantly affected volumes, suggesting that skilled and automatic trading now accounts for a growing share of activity.
Issuing stablecoins supports on-chain liquidity
Stablecoin liquidity remained an important pillar of Solana’s DEX performance. Throughout 2025, the network saw strong issuance of USDC, improving depth for decentralized trading pairs. Alone in December Circle $7.75 billion in USDC minted on Solana, in response to on-chain minting records.
The influx of stablecoins increased sales but did little to vary Solana's share of long-term DeFi capital.
Despite record-breaking DEX volumes and increasing network revenue, Solana’s native token has did not sustain with on-chain momentum. The SOL price is around $124 at the tip of December, down greater than 35% from the last quarter of 2025.
SOL/USD each day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
