Solana’s 5th birthday highlights explosive growth and trading activity: Mercuryo

As Solana celebrates its fifth anniversary, new data from global payments infrastructure platform Mercuryo reveals extreme levels of volatility in Tether trading on the Solana transport layer this year. 

The sharp price movements reflect growing interest from crypto traders in Solana ( SOL ), which has become one of the most active blockchain networks by transaction volume.

Solana’s genesis block was created on March 16, 2020. Over the past five years, the network has processed more than 408 billion transactions and nearly $1 trillion in trading volume on decentralized exchanges, establishing itself as a dominant player in the layer-1 blockchain space.

Since its launch five years ago, Solana has become one of the top-performing layer-1 blockchains given its combination of high-speed with low-cost transactions. Solana’s ability to handle massive transaction volumes with minimal fees has made it a preferred network for traders seeking quick execution and high liquidity.

Extreme USDT volatility reflects market interest

According to data from Mercuryo, Tether USDT trading on Solana has seen increased volatility in early 2025 as traders respoisition their approach and strategy to capitalize on changing market trends. Mercuryo’s data highlights the following dramatic price swings:

• 100% surge (week of Jan 13)
• 63% drop (Jan 20)
• 129% recovery (Jan 27)
• 61% plunge (Feb 10)
• 137% spike (Feb 24)

“Solana captivates the interest of crypto traders across the globe,” said Greg Waisman, Co-founder and COO at Mercuryo. “As Solana celebrates its fifth birthday, our transaction data on Tether tokens on the Solana transport layer suggests an unparalleled level of trading activity amid an explosion of interest in trading opportunities on Solana that we’ve seen over the past 12 months.”

Memecoin frenzy fuels trading activity

A major driver behind the surge in Solana’s trading volume is the growing popularity of meme coins. Holders of Solana have been using the token to buy meme coins like dogwifhat ( WIF ) and Bonk ( BONK ).

Meanwhile, Pump.fun has generated over $540 million in revenue over the past year. Notably, Pump.fun’s trading volume has surpassed Ethereum over 24-hour periods on many occasions over the past year. This can be seen as a clear sign of Solana’s role in the meme coin space.