The surge in meme coin popularity has led to a substantial increase in decentralized exchange (DEX) activity on Solana in recent months. Currently, Solana commands 29% of the DEX market, compared to Ethereum's 36% — a significant rise from its previous 1.1% market share just a year ago, when Ethereum dominated with a 50-70% hold.

This remarkable growth is largely fueled by the ongoing meme coin craze on Solana's network. Airdrops by Pyth Network and Jupiter, distributing tokens worth an estimated $290 million to Solana users, have spurred a surge in new token creation and trading activity.

Meme coins like dogwifhat [WIF] and Bonk [BONK] are known for their volatility, often causing delays in listings on centralized exchanges, thus making DEX platforms more attractive to traders. Consequently, Solana's DEX expansion has skyrocketed, with eight out of the top ten trading pairs comprising meme coins paired with Solana's SOL token.

This heightened trading activity has also propelled a significant increase in Solana's decentralized finance (DeFi) value, which currently stands at $2.90 billion — an 89% surge since the beginning of the year. However, despite the recent surge in Solana's DEX volume, user engagement has generally decreased in recent weeks. This decline in demand has resulted in a corresponding decrease in network fees and revenue. Even Solana's revenue from transaction fees has seen a 46% drop since February. Nonetheless, the success of the meme coin market rally on Solana's DEX platforms has undeniably provided a substantial boost to the network in its competition against Ethereum in this arena.