#Gate13周年现场直击

Solana Q1 Revenue Plummets 68%: How Much Underlying Value Does SOL Have Left?

Solana’s Q1 revenue dropped sharply by 68%, with active developers falling by 30%. At the same time, total network fees fell to $89.9 million, the lowest since Q3 2023; the number of monthly active developers decreased by about 30% year over year, and this coincides with the industry-wide AI replacement wave, pulling the whole trend downward. As the speculative tide rapidly recedes, meme coin trading volume shrinks in a dramatic cliff-like drop, and the bubble of on-chain yield is punctured one by one. An unavoidable question is placed in front of all SOL holders: when both revenue and developers come to a halt, how much underlying value does the SOL have left?

Data Dilemma: Solana’s Triple Retreat in Q1

Solana’s Q1 revenue dropped sharply by 68%, with active developers falling by 30%. Behind this revenue collapse are three simultaneous retreats: speculative demand, on-chain activity, and developer participation. For reference, Ethereum L1 fees in the same period were $82 million, and the gap between the two has already narrowed significantly.

Let’s look at the breakdown in more detail. In the fee structure, Jito tips (MEV) plunged 72.3% year over year, and priority fees fell by 68.8% year over year. Pump Fun remains the largest contributor to the network’s GDP ($103 million), but concerns have emerged in the market due to the misalignment between its valuation and the SOL price.

What’s even more concerning is that the average cost for the network to generate $1 of actual economic value rose 93% year over year to $8.10, showing a clear deterioration in efficiency. In addition, Solana’s number of monthly active developers decreased by about 30% compared with the same period last year, resonating with the broader trend of AI replacing Web3 developers across the industry.

Structural Pain: A One-Leg Model Highly Dependent on Speculation

Solana’s Q1 revenue dropped sharply by 68%, with active developers falling by 30%. With Solana stuck in a typical structural trap.

We can imagine this chain as a pop-up department store that relies on meme coins and retail trading—it’s packed in peak season, but deserted when it’s quiet. The number of active addresses fell from a peak of 40 million in March to around 34 million; daily average DEX trading volume declined 4% year over year. Meme coins’ share of Solana’s DEX trading volume once surged to a bubble peak of more than 63%, and then retreated sharply in Q1.

In terms of yields, the average real on-chain yield in the first quarter was only 0.17% (annualized), down 67% year over year. Of the total on-chain yield of 6.7%, 89% came from newly issued SOL rather than real economic activity. While the stablecoin supply increased by 18% year over year to $15.9 billion, its circulation velocity fell 69% month over month. We believe that capital is not truly flowing. The number of new tokens created on Pump Fun rose by 21% year over year to 3 million, but a large amount of low-quality assets dilutes the network’s real value instead.

SOL’s Value Anchor: Building Remaining Assets Through Technological Upgrades and Community Resilience

Solana’s Q1 revenue dropped sharply by 68%, with active developers falling by 30%. Although it faces near-term pressure, Solana’s underlying value still rests on two irreplaceable dimensions: a performance revolution and holder consensus.

Technological Anchor

The Alpenglow protocol upgrade went live on the mainnet in early 2026, compressing block finalization time from 12 seconds to 100–150 milliseconds. The Firedancer V1 audit competition started on April 9. Jump Crypto set a $1 million bounty pool for it, and the full mainnet version is expected to be deployed within 2026. The Firedancer team also proposed the SIMD-0370 plan to remove the block computation limit, paving the way for unlimited scaling.

Holder Anchor

The number of SOL holders climbed to a historic peak of 166.9 million in early April. The staking amount reached 426.4 million SOL, accounting for 74.4% of circulating supply. Standard Chartered maintains a $250 price target by the end of 2026 and is optimistic about Solana’s long-term potential in the stablecoin micro-payments track. As of the time of writing, the latest SOL price is $85.67.

Community confidence in Solana has shifted from emotion-driven sentiment to infrastructure-based belief. Holding growth and price decline occurring at the same time indicates that holders are not betting on the next meme coin wave; instead, they are betting that Alpenglow and Firedancer—two legs—will ultimately support a public chain that can run all applications end to end.