You’ve probably heard: 'Solana is dying, the network is crashing, transactions are freezing, it's all over!', and we've been hearing this for the last two years. And here’s the surprise: while the haters were writing obituaries, Solana outpaced all competitors in the number of active addresses.
According to Nansen, over the past week, the network showed 20.7 million active wallets. In second place is BNB Chain with 10.2 million, and that’s with all the support from Binance! Base, a new toy from Coinbase, has 7.1 million. Tron and Sei round out the top five, but honestly, they seem to be here just as 'extras'.
Now an important point. At the end of July, Solana had 28 million active addresses, at the beginning of August - 22 million, and now 'only' 20 million. The media immediately rushed to write: 'Activity is declining, Solana is running out of steam.' But wait. If 'running out of steam' means outpacing the nearest competitor by two times, then where can I sign up for such a demise?
Look at Ethereum. Great, mighty, with rich developers and fans, it is stuck somewhere around 2.5 million active addresses. That’s ten times less than Solana. Maybe Vitalik is just playing chess in the meantime?
And now a serious question: what is actually happening?
Firstly, Solana has become the 'TikTok of blockchains'. Fast, cheap, and perfectly suited for those who don’t want to read manuals on gas fees.
Secondly, meme coins. Yes, they are often criticized, but they generate activity, prompting people to open wallets and make transactions.
Thirdly, DeFi on Solana is coming back to life. NFTs are also breathing there, strangely enough.
But here's what annoys critics the most: Solana is not just alive, it is more popular. Every new report confirms: despite all the 'crashes' and 'network overloads', people continue to use it more often than any other platform.
And this raises the main question, if Solana is 'dead', then what do all the others look like?
