Solana saw its highest monthly active addresses, surpassing 120 million in October

Solana had its highest-ever monthly number of active addresses, over 123 million, last month.

According to The Block's data dashboard, the number of unique addresses that signed transactions across Solana increased by over 42% from September's figure. The network had less than 12.7 million active addresses in January this year.

Analysts say that Solana’s recent surge in activity is driven by the increasing popularity of memecoin trading on the network, supported by platforms like the memecoin generation app Pump.fun and the decentralized exchange Raydium, both of which experienced strong activity over the past month.

This comes as October's a16z’s State of Crypto report showed over 100 million monthly active addresses on Solana compared to about 57 million on Ethereum and other EVM chains, suggesting higher user engagement on Solana.

Pump.fun had a monthly revenue of over $30.5 million in October, while Raydium saw over $30 billion worth of trade volume during the month, DefiLlama data shows.

"Specifically, pump.fun has registered a record amount of new tokens launched in October, while Raydium also saw the biggest monthly volume in the same month," noted Eden Au, Research Director at The Block.

"It is unclear if this memecoin narrative would be sustainable if other narratives take over and the market attention shifts elsewhere," Au said. "Still, there are many varieties of apps and infrastructure hosted on Solana - from DeFi to DePIN - that Solana is likely here to stay despite an increasing amount of blockchains competing for liquidity and user activity."

Justin D’Anethan, head of business development at APAC of Keyrock, told The Block that Solana, historically regarded as an alternative to Bitcoin and Ethereum, appeals to users and traders, prioritizing speed and cost-efficiency over ideological purity. 

“While Ethereum and Layer-2 solutions remain crucial to the broad DeFi landscape, Solana’s low-fee, high-performance network is pulling in users who need fast, affordable transactions,” D’Anethan said. “For high-frequency or smaller trades, Solana’s structure is ideal, as Ethereum’s fees often eat into profits,” he added.

Analysts also pointed to the Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) meme token's meteoric rise, spurred by its connection to the AI chatbox Terminal of Truths. The hype surrounding GOAT memecoin has spawned dozens of other AI-inspired memecoins on Solana.

According to The Block’s price page, Solana (SOL), the network's native cryptocurrency, is currently trading at $161, an increase of over 12% in the last 30 days.