Solana's Bullish 2025: The Story in Numbers

Solana remains one of the most active blockchain networks in 2025. Despite declines in decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes, growth in liquid staking, real-world assets (RWA), and decentralized infrastructure applications has kept the network on solid ground. 

Messari’s Q2 2025 report shows that Solana applications are capturing more value from real usage, signaling a maturing ecosystem built on deeper financial and institutional adoption.

Application Revenue and Monetization

Messari’s key metric, App RCR (Revenue Capture Ratio), highlights how much value apps are generating relative to network fees.

• Q2 2025 App RCR: 211.6%
• Q1 2025 App RCR: 126.5%

This means for every $100 in transaction fees, Solana apps generated $211.60 in revenue—a 67.3% increase quarter-over-quarter. Even with a slowdown in speculative trading, applications became more efficient at monetization.

Worth noting, the Solana memecoin platform, recently Pump.fun reached a six-month high with $13.48M weekly revenue from memecoin launches, per Solana Floor.

DeFi Expansion: Total Value Locked

Solana’s DeFi ecosystem grew steadily in Q2. Total Value Locked (TVL) rose 30.4% QoQ to $8.6 billion, keeping Solana second only to Ethereum.

• Kamino: $2.1B TVL (+33.9%)
• Raydium: $1.8B TVL (+53.5%)
• Jupiter: $1.6B TVL (+13.2%)

Kamino’s launch of Lend V2 in May drew $200 million in deposits within weeks. Raydium reclaimed the second-largest position with 21% market share in Solana DeFi.

Real-World Assets (RWA)

RWAs have become one of Solana’s strongest growth drivers, climbing 124.8% YTD to $390.6M in value.

• Ondo Finance’s USDY: $175.3M
• OUSG: $79.6M
• ACRED: $26.9M
• BlackRock’s BUIDL: $25.2M

These tokenized products show that institutional players like BlackRock and Apollo are deploying on Solana.

Liquid Staking

Staking continues to deepen Solana’s security and liquidity.

• Liquid staking rate: 12.2% of circulating SOL (up from 10.4% in Q1, 2025)
• Total staked SOL: >64% of supply

Leading pools:

• jitoSOL: $2.8B (38% share, down 6%)
• bnSOL: $1.4B (18.9% share, slightly down)
• jupSOL: $783.6M (10.7% share, up 7.4%)

Cross-Chain and Infrastructure Updates

On Aug. 19, 1inch launched native cross-chain swaps between Solana and EVM networks. The feature removes the need for wrapped tokens or third-party bridges.

That same day, Bullish exchange (BLSH) revealed it raised $1.15B in stablecoins from its IPO proceeds, with most funds issued as USDC on Solana.

Wyoming also introduced its state-backed Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) across Solana, Ethereum, and other chains.

Moreover, the US SEC approved Rex Osprey’s Solana Staking ETF (SSK) in June.

Corporate Treasury Adoption

Public companies are increasingly adding SOL to balance sheets—not just for exposure, but also for staking rewards and validator operations. Here are the top public companies holding SOL as treasury assets as of Aug. 15, per Solana Reserve data. 

• Upexi Inc.: 2M SOL (~$393M)
• DeFi Development Corp: 1.29M SOL (~$254.2M)
• Mercurity Fintech: 1.08M SOL (~$211.3M)
• Specimen Inc. (ISPC): 1M SOL (~$195.1M)
• Sol Strategies Inc. (HODL): 392K SOL (~$76.6M)

Together, verified public firms now hold 1.03% of total SOL supply (~$1.15B).

Conclusion

Solana’s 2025 numbers show a maturing ecosystem. Even as NFTs, DEX volumes, and stablecoin balances declined, DeFi growth, liquid staking expansion, and institutional RWA adoption helped stabilize the network. With ETFs, treasury adoption, and new cross-chain functionality, Solana has strengthened its role as a high-performance blockchain with diverse real-world use cases.

Resources:

1. Solana Reserve’s Strategic SOL Reserve (SSR) dashboard: https://www.strategicsolanareserve.org/

2. Rex-Osprey’s Solana staking ETF launch announcement: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250702321672/en/REX-Osprey-Launches-First-U.S.-ETF-with-Solana-Exposure-plus-Staking-Rewards

3. Messari Solana Q2, 2025 report: https://messari.io/report/state-of-solana-q2-2025