Memecoin Activity Hits New Lows as Weekly Solana DEX Volume Stays Above $18.6B

240% Rise in Tokenized Assets Signal Market Rotation

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Sentiment across crypto has turned bleak. Prices are down, liquidations are routine, and timelines are full of talk about “lower for longer”. It is easy to assume users are leaving and activity is collapsing with price.

Onchain data from the past 100 days on Solana tells a more nuanced story. Rather than a simple exodus, the picture looks like a rotation. Some speculative segments are shrinking, while others such as tokenized assets and perpetual trading are taking a larger share of the pie. The market is clearly risk-off in some areas but not switched off.

Memecoins Lose Share, Volume Rotates Elsewhere

Trading Vol by Category The memecoin sector has seen the steepest contraction in this rotation. Over the past 100 days, memecoins on Solana DEXs have dropped from 34.8% of weekly trading volume in early August to below 9.1%, reducing their relative share to less than one-third of prior levels. The last comparable period was December 2023, when $SOL traded near $70, total weekly DEX volume was about $5.4B, and memecoins accounted for roughly $650M. Despite today’s lower share, total weekly DEX volume now exceeds $18.6B, with memecoin volume around $1.7B. This indicates not a disappearance of activity, but a recalibration of speculative demand within the Solana ecosystem.

What has not happened is an equivalent collapse in overall DEX volume. Instead of disappearing, liquidity has moved. Trading in $SOL-stablecoin pairs, project tokens and Bitcoin has grown. Bitcoin’s share of weekly volume has risen above 4.5%, and tokenized assets have seen the most dramatic change: from less than 0.08% of weekly volume in early August to more than 0.188% (240% growth) over recent weeks.

Mid-Sized Traders Gain Ground as Tiny Tickets Decline

Trading Vol by Size Trades with volume between $1K and $10K have increased their share of DEX activity. Over the past 100 days, their contribution to weekly volume has risen from 33.2% to more than 37%. This suggests that “serious retail” or mid-sized traders remain engaged and may even be taking a larger role in providing liquidity and volume.

At the same time, trades under $1K have declined. Their share of weekly volume has fallen by about 9% points to below 29%. Very small tickets appear to be pulling back, which is consistent with casual memecoin and launchpad participants stepping aside.

Large trades above $100K have not shown a structural break. Their share has fluctuated between 2% and 9% on a weekly basis, with no clear directional trend. Big players do not seem to be dramatically reallocating, but they are also not compensating for the drop in speculative flow.

Launchpads Cool Down as Memecoins Shrink

Tokens Deployed The fall in memecoin volume is closely linked to the slowdown in new launches. In early August, Solana saw more than 220K new memecoins minted each week across launchpads. In recent weeks that figure has dropped to under 110K. Supply is literally being cut in half, which naturally reduces the number of fresh narratives and gambling opportunities for traders.

Within this shrinking pie, market structure has also concentrated. Pump.fun’s share of launches has climbed to its highest level in months, while other launchpads have faded toward the margins.

Trading Bots and Axiom See Revenues Fall

Trading Bot Vol With fewer new memecoins to chase, trading bot activity on Solana has dropped sharply. Axiom, the largest trading bot platform in this segment on Solana, now processes less than $34M in daily volume. On October 1, that figure was $174M. The drop in flow has translated directly into lower revenues. Axiom’s daily revenue, which in September exceeded $2.6M, has fallen by more than 84% to under $400K.

RWAs and Tokenized Stocks Quietly Build Momentum

Tokenized stocks on Solana are only a few months old, yet they have already crossed $100M in DEX trading volume over the past 30 days. Their weekly share of DEX volume has grown by roughly 240% since early August.

Access to names like Tesla, Nvidia, and Circle through providers such as xStocks and Remora has attracted noticeable onchain activity. For traders seeking equity-like exposure within the Solana ecosystem, tokenized stocks and other tokenized assets are emerging as a growing segment of DEX volume rather than a speculative alternative.

Perpetuals Hit New Highs: Pacifica Leads

Over the past six months, weekly perp volume on Solana has grown from $4.5B to more than $12.1B last week, a 2.7x increase. In early October, weekly perp volume set a new record above $17.9B.

Pacifica currently holds the largest share of this market. In the most recent week, 47.8% of perp volume on Solana took place on Pacifica. Many participants attribute a significant part of this flow to airdrop farming.

Changing Patterns in Solana Activity

Memecoins, hyperactive launchpads and trading bots tied to that flow are in a clear downtrend. At the same time, tokenized assets, tokenized stocks and perpetuals are gaining share, while mid-sized traders remain engaged and overall, DEX volumes hold up better than price would suggest.

For Solana-native observers, the takeaway is that risk appetite has shifted rather than disappeared. In a bearish market, users are still onchain, but they are choosing different ways to express their views.

This piece is part of our Solana Data Insights series. Make sure to subscribe to Solana Data Insights for weekly onchain analysis.