Inside Solana’s Record Year: Unpacking the Milestones Behind DeFi’s Growth in 2024

2024 has been monumental for Solana DeFi, marked by explosive growth, record-breaking achievements, and a resurgence that has defied all expectations. After the setbacks of 2022, Solana not only recovered but thrived, establishing itself as a leading force in the DeFi landscape.

The collapse of FTX in 2022 sent shockwaves through the crypto industry, and Solana was hit hard. Its Total Value Locked (TVL) plummeted from a peak of $10 billion to a low of $249 million, a staggering 97.51% drop.

 Solana TVL dropped 97.51% in June 2023 (Defillama)

Many wrote off Solana as a "dead chain," but the Solana community remained resilient. Throughout 2023, developers and builders continued to innovate and expand the Solana ecosystem, laying the foundation for an extraordinary comeback. This dedication paid off in 2024, as Solana DeFi experienced parabolic growth.  

 In 2024, TVL surged from $1.41 billion in January to an impressive $9.45 billion by December 7th, a remarkable 572.34% increase, nearly reaching its previous all-time high. 

For the first time in three years, five Solana DeFi protocols have individually surpassed $2B in TVL.

Liquid Staking Fuels the Resurgence

Liquid staking emerged as a major catalyst for Solana's growth in 2024. While native staking initially dominated the landscape, innovative protocols led to a rapid expansion of the Liquid Staking Token (LST) sector. The number of SOL staked in LSTs nearly doubled, rising from $17.25 million on January 1st to over $35 million by year-end, with the number of available LSTs also increasing significantly.

Source: Dune

Jito Leads the Charge

Jito, a Solana infrastructure provider and the network's largest staking platform, played a pivotal role in Solana's resurgence. Jito's TVL skyrocketed from $647 million in January to over $3 billion in November, making it the leading protocol on Solana by TVL. JitoSOL, its LST, captured 43% of the total LST market share, underscoring its dominance.

Jito TVL ATH November 2024 (Defillama)

Jito's success was further fueled by the surge in Solana's trading activity. The protocol's fees generated from MEV (Miner Extractable Value) surpassed $199 million in November alone, a staggering increase from $5.94 million in January, representing a growth of 3,245.45%. This remarkable figure surpassed the fees generated by Ethereum, Uniswap, and Lido, underscoring Solana’s expanding dominance in the broader DeFi ecosystem.

Marinade : Scaling Innovation for Institutional Clients

Marinade , one of Solana's oldest staking protocols, also experienced significant growth, with its TVL exceeding $2 billion in November, up from $1.14 billion at the start of the year.  Marinade's TVL Growth (Defillama)

Marinade expanded its offerings to include institutional staking solutions and introduced Marinade V2, which boasts the highest staking yield for native staking on Solana. Notably, Coinbase Prime integrated mSOL, Marinade's LST, for institutional trading and staking.

Centralized Exchanges Enter Solana's Liquid Staking Arena

In 2024, centralized exchanges made their debut in the Solana liquid staking market.. Binance, Bybit, and Bitget launched their own LSTs powered by Sanctum, broadening the range of options available to users. Binance's BNSOL achieved an impressive $1.35 billion in TVL within just three months of its launch, while Bybit's bbSOL garnered $172 million.

Sanctum, the infrastructure provider behind these LSTs, saw its TVL soar from $20 million in January to $1.84 billion by year-end, an increase of 91,00%. Sanctum's platform facilitates the creation, trading, and management of LSTs, making staking on Solana more accessible and flexible.

 

Solana's DEX Volume: Reaching Escape Velocity

Solana's exceptional user experience and fast transaction speeds attracted a wave of new users in 2024, leading to a surge in decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume.

Solana's Monthly DEX Volume November 2024 (Defillama) 

Monthly DEX volume skyrocketed from $1 billion in 2023 to a record-breaking $129 billion in November 2024, surpassing Ethereum's all-time high of $117 billion set in May 2021. This marked the second consecutive month that Solana led in DEX trading volume, capturing a 34% market share. 

Solana also surpassed Ethereum and all Layer 2s combined in weekly DEX volume, hitting a record $41 billion. 

Pump.fun: The Powerhouse Behind Meme Coin Success on Solana

Pump.fun has become the biggest revenue-generating decentralized application (dApp) across all blockchains, playing a cruical role in Solana's surge in decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume. As a leader in the memecoin economy, Pump.fun has solidified  Solana’s position as a dominant force in DEX activity.

Launched in January 2024, Pump.fun is a no-code memecoin creation platform that empowers anyone, regardless of their blockchain expertise, to easily launch their own tokens. Since its inception, the platform has facilitated the deployment of over 4.9 million tokens, averaging more than 30 new coins created every minute.

Pump.fun has driven the growth of various memecoin categories, including AI-themed memes, dog-themed memes, cat-themed memes, political finance (PolitiFi), and celebrity coins. Often referred to as a "money-making machine," Pump.fun has generated an astonishing 1,758,277 SOL in revenue since its launch. At the current SOL price of $226, this translates to approximately $397 million in revenue, making Pump.fun the fastest crypto application in history to surpass $300 million in revenue.

Raydium: The Undisputed DEX Leader

Raydium has established itself as the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) not just on Solana but across all blockchains, a remarkable turnaround from its position at the start of 2024. Back then, ORCA was the dominant DEX on Solana, maintaining its lead throughout 2023 and into the early months of 2024.

Orca's DEX dominance on Solana (Defillama)

However, a significant shift occurred when Pump.fun gained traction and chose to leverage Raydium for the token pools designed to meet its bonding curve requirements. This partnership, facilitated by Raydium's permissionless nature, turned it into Pump.fun's preferred protocol for creating pools for migrated tokens.

Raydium flipped Orca in June 2024 (Defillama)

As Pump.fun's popularity soared among traders, Raydium's market share began to climb. By June 2024, Raydium flipped ORCA for the first time, albeit with a narrow volume difference. 

The momentum continued, and by October 2024, Raydium surpassed Uniswap's Ethereum DEX volume. In November, Raydium expanded this margin significantly, achieving $124 billion in trading volume compared to Uniswap's $90 billion. This surge in activity propelled Raydium's total value locked (TVL) past $2.2 billion, reaching a level not seen since November 2021.

Solana's Explosive Perps Ecosystem Growth in 2024

In 2024, the Solana decentralized perpetual (Perps) trading ecosystem saw remarkable growth, with Jupiter Exchange emerging as the dominant player. At the onset of the year, Solana ranked eighth in Perps DEX volume share, with Drift protocol leading the scene at 57%.

2023: Solana ranked 8th in Perps volume (Defillama)

However, the infrastructure and trading environment around Perps on Solana underwent significant improvements, paving the way for dramatic changes. Jupiter Exchange's monthly trading volume surged to $35 billion by mid-year, a stark increase from the under $2 billion average monthly volume for the entire Solana chain in January. 

Jupiter's monthly trading volume hits an ATH (Defillama)

By November, Solana leapfrogged to the second position in Perps trading volume, recording a new all-time high of $43 billion, with Jupiter commanding an impressive 82% of this volume, while Drift accounted for 15%.

Jupiter's dominance in Solana Perps ecosystem

The growth did not end with trading volume; Jupiter Exchange also witnessed a tremendous increase in Total Value Locked (TVL). By November, Jupiter's TVL surpassed $2.5 billion for the first time, marking it as the second-largest protocol by TVL on Solana. 

Jupiter's TVL hits a new ATH (Defillama)

This phenomenal growth can be quantified as a staggering 2,770.11% increase from January 2024, when its TVL stood at only $87 million. This remarkable trajectory highlighted Jupiter's pivotal role in solidifying Solana's status as a powerhouse in the Perps trading landscape.

Kamino Finance: Leading the DeFi Lending Boom on Solana in 2024

As 2024 unfolded, Solana became a focal point for DeFi lending, experiencing remarkable growth that reshaped the landscape. At the beginning of the year, MarginFi ranked as the top lending protocol, with Kamino Finance closely following in second place and Save, formerly known as Solend, taking third place.

Kamino Finance achieved the most significant growth, with its total value locked (TVL) skyrocketing from $220 million in January to an impressive $2.4 billion by November, marking a staggering increase of 990.91%. This surge propelled Kamino Finance to become the third-largest DeFi protocol on Solana by TVL.

Kamino TVL hits a new ATH November 2024 (Defillama)

According to the Kamino Lend dashboard, the number of loans reached 156,446, while total deposits into the lending markets exceeded $3 billion, and the total borrowed amount stood at $1.2 billion. This substantial growth underscores the dynamic expansion of DeFi lending on Solana, solidifying its status as a cornerstone for on-chain banking.

Emerging Trends: Telegram Bots and Trading Terminals

The emergence of Telegram bots and trading terminals in 2024, a trend initiated by BONKbot, ignited a large shift in the DeFi landscape, introducing an entirely new way for users to engage with DeFi. While BONKbot was the pioneer, it was the Photon trading terminal and bot that ultimately led the charge; launched in January 2024, Photon achieved an impressive $188 million in revenue and surpassed $22 billion in lifetime trading volume. 

Photon is now ranked the third largest protocol on Solana by revenue generation, falling behind only Pump.fun and the Solana protocol itself. Following Photon was Trojan, which generated $12 billion in trading volume largely through meme coin trading, and then BONKbot, which accumulated a lifetime trading volume of $10 billion and attracted over 450,000 users. The success of Photon was largely attributed to its unique user interface, filling a gap in the market as prior offerings on Telegram did not provide a dedicated trading terminal for discovering trending tokens.

Trading bots revenue (Dune)

This innovation sparked a wave of competition, leading to the emergence of other popular trading terminals, such as Pump.fun and Jupiter, all seeking to tap into the lucrative revenue potential of this new trend. 

Top revenue generating apps on Solana (Defillama)

As a result, trading terminals and bots have solidified their positions as the top revenue-generating applications within the Solana ecosystem, with four out of the top seven revenue-generating apps now trading bots and terminals. 

If 2022 and 2023 were marked by FUD surrounding Solana, then 2024 will be remembered as the year of its resurgence. With liquid staking adoption driving TVL, DEX volumes leading on-chain trading, and innovations across trading bots, perpetual futures, and lending markets, Solana has positioned itself as a key player in decentralized finance. Emerging sectors like DePIN, real-world asset tokenization, and AI-integrated DeFi applications could unlock additional opportunities, while Solana’s speed and cost-efficiency remain attractive for developers and users alike. As Solana enters 2025, it faces both the potential to surpass previous records and the challenge of sustaining its momentum in an evolving market landscape.