Key Takeaways
- Solana DEX volume hit $4.8B on June 28 an all-time high and close to matching Ethereum’s $5.2B on the same day.
- Raydium and Jupiter accounted for 78% of Solana DEX volume combined.
- SOL price rose to $192 before settling at $182 up 82% year-to-date.
- Total value locked (TVL) on Solana DeFi protocols crossed $14B for the first time.
Solana’s decentralized finance ecosystem hit a landmark on June 28: $4.8 billion in single-day DEX trading volume, an all-time high for the network and a figure that puts it in direct competition with Ethereum’s $5.2B on the same day. The milestone marks Solana’s emergence as a genuine DeFi powerhouse rather than a speculative layer-1 challenger.
What’s Driving the Volume
Memecoin trading remains the largest single driver of Solana DEX activity accounting for an estimated 40% of June’s volume but the composition is diversifying. Structured DeFi products, perpetual futures protocols, and real-world asset tokenization platforms are contributing a growing share of activity.
| Protocol | June Volume | Market Share | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jupiter | $42B | 44% | DEX Aggregator |
| Raydium | $33B | 34% | AMM DEX |
| Drift Protocol | $12B | 12% | Perpetuals |
| Orca | $6B | 6% | AMM DEX |
| Others | $5B | 4% |
The Investment Case
SOL has been the best-performing major crypto asset year-to-date at +82%, outpacing both Bitcoin (+50%) and Ethereum (+28%). For Canadian investors, direct SOL exposure requires a crypto exchange there are no Canadian-listed Solana ETFs. However, some Canadian fund managers with discretionary crypto exposure have been adding SOL to multi-asset crypto funds.