TL; DR
Full story
July is officially over (can you believe it?), which means we can now take a look back at what happened in the crypto markets over the past month.
Today we’re going to focus on a battle as old as…
Well, it’s actually only a little over four years old, but in crypto years that’s a long time.
We’re talking Ethereum vs. Solana!
(Specifically the amount of usage of DEXs built on Ethereum compared to those built in Solana).
For the first time ever, Solana beat Ethereum in total trading volume for the month (see header image 👆).
That in itself is interesting, but what’s even more interesting is… Why this may be the case.
Ultimately it comes down to three important things:
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Branding! Seriously, if Twitter is anything to go by, the amount of times we’ve heard people talk about Solana as a “fun” blockchain to build on is downright weird.
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Meme coins. The undisputed champion of the current cycle’s story so far are meme coins.
Those built on the cheaper blockchain options (Solana and Base) have blown up, while classic NFT projects like Bored Apes built on Ethereum have plummeted in value and trading volume.
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Finally: cost, community and creativity. The more mature the web3 industry becomes, the less people seem willing to spend money on gas costs.
Not only is Solana 100-1000 times cheaper in terms of gas (transaction) costs than Ethereum (depending on network congestion), nowadays Solana also has no less functionality than Ethereum.
Moreover, the way Solana has bridged the gap between the developer community and the users is something to admire.
While this may seem like an advertisement for the Solana blockchain, it is not!
Both Ethereum and Solana have their unique place in the web3 ecosystem.
But dates don’t lie!
And based on its current trajectory, if we extrapolate this data over a few weeks, months, or years, it looks like Ethereum is in for a rough ride.
Let’s see how it turns out!