How Solana’s $117B DEX volume overtook Ethereum in 2026

Over the previous two weeks, each Ethereum [ETH] and Solana [SOL] have declined in worth. Current information reveals ETH buying and selling at $2,039, down greater than 12% prior to now week, whereas SOL dropped over 17% throughout the identical interval, based on CoinMarketCap

Solana has been gaining floor in community exercise, whereas Ethereum has skilled a much less extreme value crash. Transactions, capital circulation, DEX quantity, and funds information provide insights into how the Ethereum and Solana contest goes in 2026.

Capital circulation from Solana to Ethereum 

First, Solana‘s each day transaction exercise hit a brand new peak of 160 million this month, as per Blockworks data. The exercise has been rising steadily since November 2021, a interval when there was an altcoin season.

Throughout this time, SOL was buying and selling round $84. This didn’t replicate the power in community exercise. Nonetheless, this weak spot was market-wide.

Solana’s power was not solely in exercise but additionally in capital inflows.

Over the past week, greater than $100 million was bridged from different chains to SOL, with Ethereum contributing greater than $50 million. This demonstrated Solana’s growing dominance in transaction exercise.

Supply: deBridge

Different chains that considerably bridged to Solana had been TRON [TRX], Base, Arbitrum [ARB], and BNB Chain, respectively.

Solana doubles Ethereum in DEX quantity 

Solana additionally surpassed Ethereum in decentralized trade (DEX) quantity. The info confirmed Solana at $117 billion, greater than double Ethereum’s $52 billion, which ranked second.

The altcoin outperformed BNB Chain, Base, and Arbitrum, which ranked simply behind it. This means that Solana is excelling not solely compared to Ethereum but additionally throughout the broader crypto sector.

Supply: CryptoRank

Such excessive buying and selling quantity emanated from initiatives working on the Solana blockchain. It harbors a lot of the memecoins, and now tokens in RWA and DePIN, amongst different sectors, are launching on SOL.

That explains why it has rapidly caught up with ETH, which was a pacesetter in a lot of the DeFi actions.

What in regards to the battle in funds?

Even within the new cost rails, Solana continues to dominate Ethereum, as per Artemis information.

A lot of the quantity is dominated by fintech like PayPal, which had $1.8 trillion as of writing. However, Solana and Ethereum had $6.5 billion and $68.2 billion, respectively.

Nonetheless, by way of progress proportion, blockchain leads. For example, SOL grew by 755%, whereas ETH had 625%. PayPal solely managed 6.3%. One other contest misplaced by ETH to SOL.

Supply: Artemis

Is the battle over?

Combining all this information confirmed that Solana was rapidly rising to problem Ethereum’s dominance in blockchain know-how.

Nonetheless, the battle was removed from over. ETH dominated in Complete Worth Locked (TVL) with over $136 billion in belongings. Solana solely managed $17 billion. This advised that ETH was nonetheless the larger blockchain, because the TVL confirmed the place confidence was.

Closing Ideas

• Solana transactions hit a brand new excessive as bridging to Solana intensifies. 
• Ethereum loses a few contests towards SOL, however TVL reveals ETH continues to be the larger chain.