Over the weekend, the Solana network experienced a surge in activity, surpassing Ethereum in terms of trading volume. According to DefiLlama, Solana’s total trading volume on March 16 reached $3.52 billion, exceeding Ethereum’s daily volume by more than $1.1 billion. This marked a new record for Solana, as its trading volume reached $3.79 billion on March 15.
However, the increased activity put a strain on the Solana network, leading to issues such as failed or missing transactions. Solana Validator data, shared by a user named “Dagnum,” revealed that the network’s ping time was between 20 and 40 seconds at 8 pm UTC on March 16. As a result, around 50% of transactions failed for approximately 20 minutes.
The surge in Solana network activity was primarily driven by the growing interest in memecoins. Traders flocked to a new memecoin called Book of Meme (BOME), which saw its market capitalization rise from almost zero to $1.45 billion in just 56 hours. Another memecoin called “$NAP” (NAP) also gained significant attention, with its market cap increasing from around $20 million to over $330 million in less than 18 hours.
As a result of the increased network activity, the price of Solana (SOL) also experienced a rally. SOL is currently trading at $200, reflecting a 7.6% increase over the past week and a 38.4% increase in the last month, according to CoinGecko.
Furthermore, Solana’s market capitalization reached a new all-time high, allowing it to surpass Binance’s BNB coin as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, valued at $88.5 billion. This increase in market cap can be attributed to the overall increase in the total supply of Solana tokens. Currently, the network’s market cap is nearly $12 billion higher than its previous peak of $76.5 billion, which was reached on November 7, 2021.