As 2026 kicks off, the market is taking stock of 2025.
Despite all the volatility, there were some clear divergences that set the stage for renewed rallies. Solana [SOL] is a perfect example. Last year, SOL showed a big disconnect between its fundamentals and price action.
While it closed 2025 as the “worst-performing asset” with a 34.16% pullback, it still dominated Layer 1s across key on-chain metrics, highlighting strong underlying activity that the market didn’t fully price in.
Source: DeFi Development Corp.
Take transactions per second (TPS), for instance. SOL averaged 1.1k TPS.
As the chart above shows, Solana led the L1 pack, marking a 34% YoY increase from 2024. Zooming in further, that’s a nearly 160% gap versus Binance Smart Chain [BSC], which came in second at roughly 130 TPS.
Yet, BNB still closed the year up 24%, clearly outperforming SOL on price. This raises the obvious question: Can Solana’s price finally catch up to its fundamentals in 2026? Notably, one key divergence suggests it might.
Solana’s L1 dominance shines amid memecoin resurgence
Memecoins are making a clear comeback this cycle.
Less than a week into 2026, the combined market cap of memecoins has jumped roughly 30%, pointing to renewed risk appetite. Naturally, with Solana hosting top memes, the network is seeing strong capital inflows.
Technically, Bonk [BONK] is leading with a 58% weekly gain, but the real momentum is on the launchpad side. Volumes have hit a three-month high of $228 million, with LetsBonk.fun driving almost 73% of the inflows.
Source: Blockworks
Put simply, Solana is seeing a solid memecoin resurgence.
Why does it matter? Solana makes up about 15% of the total memecoin market cap, and its top two launchpads alone saw $220 million in trading volume. That’s nearly 97% of memecoin activity on the network.
Solana’s TPS is key here. After dominating in speed through 2025, this memecoin rally isn’t a fluke. Instead, it underscores SOL’s L1 strength in throughput and execution, making it a key divergence for the 2026 cycle.
Final Thoughts
- Despite a 34.16% pullback in 2025, Solana led in TPS, showing strong on-chain fundamentals.
- With $228 million in launchpad volume and top memes like BONK driving inflows, SOL’s network activity highlights Layer 1 strength.
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Author: Ritika Gupta
