Solana onboarded an additional $1 billion in stablecoin total value in December, primarily in USD Coin (USDC), according to data from DefiLlama.
The inflows highlight accelerating stablecoin adoption and the Solana network’s rise to prominence in 2024, particularly in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Solana now hosts approximately $5 billion in stablecoin total value locked (TVL), with nearly $4 billion of that comprising USDC, according to the data.
Tether’s USDt (USDT) is Solana’s second most popular stablecoin, at roughly $1 billion in TVL.
Source: Dan Smith
Related: DeFi TVL nears 2021 highs on liquid restaking, Bitcoin L2s
Stablecoin adoption
As of Dec. 31, USDT’s and USDC’s total market capitalizations across blockchain networks are around $137 billion and $44 billion, respectively, according to CoinGecko.
Stablecoin market capitalizations increased sharply after United States President-elect Donald Trump’s election win in November. Many believe Trump’s win in the US presidential race will benefit the industry, Cointelegraph Research said.
Since November, the combined market capitalizations of the top three stablecoins — USDT, USDC and Dai (DAI) — have collectively grown by more than $25 billion, according to a Dec. 26 Citi research report.
This is bullish for DeFi in particular, as “stablecoins are the on-ramp to decentralized finance,” Citi said.
Source: Citi
Ethereum challenger
Solana has emerged as a serious challenger to Ethereum in DeFi and in other applications requiring smart contracts.
Since 2023, SOL (SOL) has outperformed Ether (ETH) by approximately 8x, according to data from TradingView.
In 2024, Solana’s TVL rose roughly 5x, from around $1.4 billion to upward of $8.6 billion, according to DefiLlama.
“Retail traders increasingly enter the crypto market through Solana [as] speculation intensifies around Solana-based memecoins and AI agent tokens,” Grayscale Research said in a Dec. 30 note.
In December, Grayscale added Jupiter (JUP) and Jito (JTO) — two Solana-native DeFi apps — to its list of the top 20 tokens to watch in the first quarter of 2025.
Jito, a Solana staking pool, clocked monthly revenues of more than $100 million in November and December from priority fees and tips, according to crypto researcher Kairos Research.
However, Ethereum’s stablecoin TVL still greatly surpasses Solana’s, exceeding $110 billion as of Dec. 31, according to DefiLlama.
Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins
