The Solana network, at the beginning of the year, which is a paradise for speculators and cryptocurrency enthusiasts, is currently experiencing a serious trust. The number of daily traders on decentralized stock exchanges (DEX) dropped dramatically from 4.8 million at the beginning of the year to just 900,000 in August, which means a decrease by over 80%.
Exodus retilers from the Solana ecosystem
Dune from Dune Analytics show a disturbing trend – Daily DEX transactions also decreased by almost half, from the July summit at 45 million to “only” 28.8 million. This is a drastic change for the network, which until recently was referred to as “retail chain” due to the high activity of small investors.
Ryan Lee, the main analyst at Bitget, indicates the main reason for this inheritance:
The collapse of the extractive memecoins that propelled speculative retail trade is the main factor in a sharp decline in the number of daily Dex traders on Solan
Today we are observing the fourth day in a row, when the number of active traders on the brine DEX is less than a million wallets. Interestingly, despite this, the SOL token course is growing.
Wave of fraud that destroys trust
August 2025 brought a series of spectacular fraud, which strongly shaken confidence in the Solana ecosystem. Hackers took over the accounts of Stars on Instagram, including Adele or Future. The influencers themselves did not remain without fault.
An equally loud case was the false CR7 token, allegedly associated with Cristiano Ronaldo, who in minutes achieved the capitalization of USD 143 million before insiders cut out all liquidity from it. The list of fraud is complemented by a false cryptocurrency imitating the official memecoin of Kanya West (Yzy), which fell by 81% after the rapper explained that his Instagram account was hacked.
Change in market dynamics
Solan’s share in the DEX volume fell sharply from 76% in January to just 8% in June, mainly due to rotation towards platforms embedded on the Binance Smart Chain network. However, the situation is not hopeless – since then the market division has reflected to about 27%. Interestingly, it is currently salted in the position of a leader when it comes to the total daily volume in numbers.
Analysts warn that if Solana will rely only on unstable commercial activity associated with memecoins, it can undermine its sustainable growth. With the decreasing participation of retilers and the growing dominance of whales, the “retail chain” label weakens in the eyes. Solana should now diversify outside memecoins to compete with a wider DEFI ecosystem on Ethereum.
Hope for the future
Despite pessimistic data, some experts remain carefully optimistic.
Max Shannon from Bitwery emphasizes that:
The network still has the best capital efficiency on its scale, supported by a well -fitted road map and a clear vision of further improvement in bandwidth while reducing costs (which are already small – ed.)
These factors position Solana to “remain an increasingly competitive chain” in relation to the main rivals in the long run. Solana increased by 4.86% daily to USD 213 and over 15% a week, which can signal the slow return of investors’ trust.
Solana must now find a way to rebuild retilers while reducing depending on the highly speculative memeins. The future of the network depends on the ability to attract users of real DEFI applications, and not just seekers of fast profits.
