One of crypto’s greatest rivalries boils down to memecoins

The public perception of SOL and ETH rests in the hands of memecoins traders

article-image

CryptoFX/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Ethereum and Solana will go down as one of crypto’s greatest rivalries.

ETH bears would say Vitalik’s modular scaling roadmap — which has now spawned more than 100 satellite blockchains — is doomed to accrue little value to the base asset. 

After all, what’s the point in pushing onchain activity away from mainnet and onto smaller networks, if that activity doesn’t somehow translate to higher ETH prices?

Solana has otherwise made huge strides concentrating its community on just one chain — to the point that Solana’s DEX volumes have now eclipsed that of Ethereum mainnet plus 13 others.

The chart above shows Solana’s DEX volume market share against Ethereum and 13 layer-2s over the past 18 months, including Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, Mantle, ZKSync, Polygon, Polygon zkEVM, World Chain, Zora, Linea, Blast and Arbitrum Nova.

In the past two weeks, Solana DEXs have handled $45.1 billion in volume, largely propelled by all-time highs on Raydium. Ethereum and its orbiting networks have seen less than $40.2 billion (only!).

We know that memecoin traders are driving a huge portion of that volume, whether it’s within the Ethereum context or on Solana (over 80% of weekly DEX volume on Solana is memecoins, per Blockworks Research data).

It’s however the first time that Solana has handled more weekly DEX volume than this particular slice of the Ethereum ecosystem.

What this means is that the public perception of both SOL and ETH (and to some extent all the other layer-1 base assets out there) rests on whether:

  1. Memecoin traders will gravitate toward those ecosystems, and
  2. Prices for the native cryptocurrencies will go up as a result.

With bitcoin — which leads the market right now — perhaps range-bound until the US election plays out, tracking price growth can be a noisy process. 

So, tracking price ratios between two assets can show more realistic trends. The ETH/BTC ratio, for instance, is at its lowest point since April 2021. That reflects a market that has bought into the Bitcoin value prop more than it has for Ethereum’s, at least during our current bull cycle.

Meanwhile, both the SOL/ETH and TON/ETH ratios have hit new highs in the past few months, as shown by the chart above, with the former still at those levels.

One wonders, then if crypto markets are really so efficient that they’ve picked the right winners.

To which I’d say: Do you want to be right, or do you want to make money? 


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful