While Ethereum set the foundation for smart contracts, a report by 21Shares indicates that Solana’s speed and low transaction costs are leading to broader adoption, outpacing Ethereum’s initial growth in the blockchain arena.

Solana’s Revenue Growth

Recent findings reveal that Solana’s blockchain generated approximately $2.85 billion in revenue from October 2024 to September 2025, averaging close to $240 million monthly. Peaks were noted during highly active trading periods, surpassing $600 million, particularly highlighting January 2025, when revenues peaked at $616 million. Remarkably, even as the speculative fervor diminished, Solana’s monthly earnings stabilized between $150 million and $250 million, suggesting its success is sustainable and not just a fleeting phenomenon.

Additionally, Solana’s ecosystem benefits from a varied revenue structure, with trading applications such as Photon and Axiom generating about $1.12 billion—39% of the total revenue—by enhancing transaction speed and efficiency.

The versatility of Solana’s infrastructure facilitates a wide range of applications across DeFi, AI, and tokenized real-world assets, maintaining transaction costs below $0.01 while achieving thousands of transactions per second. This robust performance enables Solana to compete with established companies in the tech sector, comparable to Palantir and Robinhood in annual revenues.

Contrasting With Ethereum

The stark difference in revenue growth between Solana and Ethereum during their respective early years is notable. From 2019 to 2020, Ethereum averaged under $10 million in monthly revenue, just a fraction of Solana’s output today.

Comparing daily engagement, Solana boasts 1.2 to 1.5 million active addresses, dwarfing Ethereum’s 400,000 to 500,000 during its formative years. However, Solana’s revenue journey wasn’t without challenges. A mere $13 million was recorded in network revenue from October 2022 to September 2023, reflecting industry skepticism clouded by outages and market volatility. Yet, in the subsequent year, the revenue surged dramatically by 220 times, marking the evolution from a trial blockchain to a viable commercial entity.

Institutional interest has notably followed this rapid growth trajectory, with over $3 billion in SOL tokens appearing on public company balance sheets and various treasury initiatives underway from firms like Forward Industries and Pantera Capital.