The total revenue of network applications for the quarter reached $342.2 million. Against this backdrop, Pump.fun’s results show that interest in launching new tokens remains high even after the meme coin market cooled.
Meme Coins Still Bring Huge Money to Solana
Pump.fun’s revenue for the quarter grew another 17% compared to the end of 2025. This is especially important given the overall slowdown in meme coin activity and the decline in hype in the sector.
Overall, token launch platforms brought Solana about $144 million for the quarter. This is about 42% of all app revenue on the network. In essence, almost half of Solana’s economy is still tied to infrastructure for creating and trading new tokens.
One of the unexpected leaders was the Bags platform. Its quarterly revenue jumped more than 1300% and reached $11.5 million thanks to a January surge in interest in AI meme coins. However, the effect was short-lived: by February, the platform’s monthly revenues had dropped by about 85%.
Solana Is Gradually Moving Away From Meme Coin Dependence
Despite Pump.fun’s dominance, the network’s structure is gradually changing. Solana is increasingly attracting major financial companies and infrastructure projects related to payments and asset tokenization.
In recent months, BlackRock, Visa, and JPMorgan have expanded their presence in the ecosystem. This shows that the network is gradually trying to establish itself not only as a platform for speculative tokens but also as an infrastructure for financial services.
Solana Foundation President Lily Liu previously stated directly that meme coins do not define the network’s future. Judging by the latest data, the ecosystem is indeed beginning to diversify, although meme coin revenues still remain the main source of income.
Trading Apps Became the Fastest-Growing Segment
Trading applications showed the strongest growth in the first quarter. Their total revenue increased by about 40% and reached $79 million.
Axiom led the way, earning $42.4 million. This makes it the second-largest app on the network after Pump.fun in terms of revenue.
This growth shows that Solana continues to strengthen its position as a trading infrastructure. The network’s high speed and low fees remain the main advantage for active traders and applications with a large number of transactions.
The Tokenized Asset Market on Solana Surpassed $2 Billion
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At the same time, the network is rapidly expanding the segment of real-world assets on the blockchain. The market capitalization of RWA projects within Solana exceeded $2 billion, increasing by about 43% for the quarter.
The main driver was the BUIDL fund from BlackRock. After custodial support from Anchorage Digital was added, its volume roughly doubled to $525 million.
This is an important signal for the network. Not long ago, Solana was mainly associated with NFTs and meme coins, but now the sector of tokenized financial products is rapidly growing within the ecosystem.
DeFi Fell Along With the Price of SOL
The decentralized finance segment looked weaker. The total value locked in Solana DeFi protocols fell by about 22% to $6.16 billion.
However, Messari analysts attribute this primarily to a roughly 33% drop in the price of SOL, not to a mass exodus of users from the network. Solana’s share of the global DeFi market has remained virtually unchanged at about 6.7%.
This shows that activity within the ecosystem remains relatively stable, even despite the token’s volatility.
Solana Is Preparing the Largest Consensus Update
One of the main technical topics within the network remains the Alpenglow update. Developers call it the largest change to Solana’s consensus mechanism in history.
If the update is released together with Agave 4.1, transaction finalization time could be reduced from about 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds. For the network, this will be a major step toward infrastructure for high-frequency payments and financial services.
Amid competition between Solana, Ethereum, and other blockchains, the issue of speed and stability is becoming increasingly important. Especially now, as networks try to attract institutional participants and projects from the tokenization segment.
Institutions Have Mixed Views on Solana
At the same time, the attitude of major players toward Solana remains ambiguous. In the first quarter, Goldman Sachs completely exited the Solana ETF, selling positions in Grayscale, Bitwise, and Fidelity funds.
Italy’s largest banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, took a similar step. The bank almost completely closed its position in the Bitwise Solana ETF, reducing its stake from 266,320 shares to 2,817.
At the same time, Intesa actively increased its investments in the BlackRock and ARK 21Shares bitcoin ETFs. This shows that some institutions still prefer more mature and liquid crypto assets.
What’s Next?
Solana remains one of the most profitable blockchain ecosystems, and Pump.fun still holds the status of its main cash engine. Even after the meme coin cooldown, launching new tokens continues to bring the network hundreds of millions of dollars.
But at the same time, trading services, tokenized assets, and institutional infrastructure are rapidly growing within Solana. This may gradually change the network’s perception in the market.
Right now, Solana is essentially between two stages of development. On one hand—meme coins and speculative activity. On the other—a bid to become a full-fledged financial infrastructure for payments, trading, and asset tokenization.
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