Solana’s DeFi ecosystem surged in Q3 2024, hitting $5.7 billion in total value locked (TVL), a 26% quarterly increase. This placed Solana third in network rankings, overtaking Tron. In SOL terms, TVL jumped by 20% to 37 million SOL.
Kamino emerged on top of the list, witnessing a 57% increment in the TVL, increasing to $1.5 billion and a full quarter of the total market. The major catalysts were the entrance of PYUSD and jupSOL. PYUSD reached $224 million in supply, earning it a 10% APY payout per the platform.
In September, Kamino launched Kamino Lend V2, which, between the permissionless market creation and the pooled liquidity, set up for higher returns. The biggest success was Jupiter Perps, with TVL rising by 75% to $749 million. MarginFi, although it had a 6% growth, only reached $364 million.
This made the market share shrink, going down by 55% compared to the April highs. Decentralized exchange (DEX) volume decreased by 10% to $1.7 billion daily, with a slow development of memecoin being a contributing factor.
Notably, Raydium saw a 13% drop in average daily traffic to $852 million but still captured the highest among the other DEXs (51%). Orca’s daily trading amount rose by 9% to $413 million and got 25% of the market. Jupiter topped 43% of DEX volumes, maintaining its leading trade source position.
Stablecoin market expansion on Solana
Solana’s stablecoin market cap rose 23% to $3.8 billion, spurred by PayPal’s PYUSD launch. PYUSD ended Q3 at $331 million, a 341% spike. Circle’s USDC grew 18%, still dominant at $2.5 billion.
Liquid staking has increased to 31% or 8.4% of SOL that have been staked, with Sanctum and JitoSOL being the projects that have massively grown. The Solana staking ecosystem was enriched with new products and the enhancement of validator-led initiatives, hence the validation of Solana.
Network strength, evidenced by Solana’s Nakamoto coefficient of 19, was maintained, which caused decentralization. The distribution of validators is found in 38 countries; however, the active nodes fell by 7% per quarter. Nevertheless, this quarter, Solana solidified its position as the leader in DeFi, staking, and stablecoins, among other areas, with remarkable growth, indicating a sound future for Solana.
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