Solana Dominates Q1, But Cracks Appear as Ethereum Gains Ground

Solana remained the highest chain for decentralized trade spot buying and selling in Q1 2026, with a 30.6% market share, in keeping with CoinGecko’s newest findings.

Its buying and selling quantity fell by 26.5% throughout the identical interval.

DEX Wars Intensify

This momentum shifted in March, when Ethereum briefly overtook Solana with a 27% share in comparison with the latter’s 26%. CoinGecko revealed BNB Chain ranked second for the quarter total after holding a 24.5% share, barely forward of Ethereum’s 23.7%. Despite this, BNB Chain recorded a steeper drop in buying and selling exercise. This signifies a potential decline to 3rd place within the coming quarter.

Meanwhile, Monad has steadily gained traction since its mainnet launch in November 2025 and is now the tenth-largest chain by spot buying and selling quantity, surpassing networks like Unichain and Optimism.

Interestingly, Solana additionally handled way more exercise than some other blockchain in Q1 2026, as it processed about 25.3 billion transactions, as per CoinRank’s information. Meanwhile, BNB Chain got here in a distant second with 1.7 billion transactions, adopted by Tron at 978 million. Polygon and Aptos had been a lot nearer to one another, every recording round 700 million transactions, whereas all different main chains stayed beneath 500 million.

Solana noticed a serious soar by way of stablecoin exercise in February 2026, having recorded round $650 billion in transactions in a single month, in keeping with The Kobeissi Letter. This was a file high and was almost thrice larger than January’s degree.

The progress was pushed by new choices like Western Union’s USDPT and Jupiter’s JUPUSD, which helped appeal to extra customers. JUPUSD additionally drew consideration for providing yield options inside its ecosystem.

SOL Ends Week Strong

Solana’s worth has been risky previously week. The crypto asset, which at present sits on the seventh spot by market cap, began close to $84 and noticed early fluctuations earlier than a pointy decline round April 12-13, when it dropped towards the $82 degree. Selling stress eased midweek, and a restoration started on April 14 as costs moved again above $84.

Momentum strengthened later into the week, which ended up pushing SOL towards $89.86.

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