- Solana processed about 637 million transactions last week according to Chainspect data, dwarfing Ethereum’s 15 million transactions on L1, thanks to sub-cent fees and the memcoin craze.
- High-speed trading in assets like PUNCH and WIF is consolidating Solana’s dominance, with SOL approaching $84 and a market capitalization of $48 billion making it the king of retail settlements.
- ETH’s low L1 count masks massive L2 activity in Base and Arbitrum after Dencun; It focuses on high-value DeFi settlements with strong ETF flows.
Ethereum has been the most preferred blockchain in terms of transactions since its inception, taking the crown of the most widely used layer 1 chain. According to the latest data from Chainspect, there is a huge variation in network activity over the past seven days, with Solana dominating Ethereum by recording a very high number of transactions.
Transaction costs of less than cents and a vast retail ecosystem are among the reasons that allowed Solana to process a staggering 637 million transactions over the past week. In comparison, Ethereum recorded only 15 million transactions during the same time period. Interestingly, the community is divided on whether recorded activity levels will be the new norm for the first class in the future.
Solana shines quickly
Solana’s staggering number of transactions are credited to the sustained “proxy economy” and the memcoin craze of 2026. Projects like PUNCH and WIF have evolved beyond jokes into high-frequency trading assets, with SOL’s hybrid Proof of History (PoH) mechanism allowing the network to handle thousands of transactions per second. This low-barrier entry has turned Solana into the “primary settlement layer” for retail speculators who are hesitant even because of discounted gas fees on other chains.
With the market cap holding steady at around $48 billion and SOL trading near the $83.85 mark, the network is effectively prioritizing horizontal expansion. The ability to process hundreds of millions of weekly transactions without significant congestion despite concerns about the centralization of the validator has made it the undisputed home of high-frequency trading, gaming and real-time payment applications. For many, the 637 million figure is a testament to SOL’s goal of becoming the “Nasdaq of the blockchain.”
Ethereum is suffering from a layer 2 migration effect
ETH’s 15 million weekly transactions may seem like a network in decline, but the reality is more nuanced. After the 2024 Dencun Upgrade and the 2026 “Semi-Annual Upgrade” Cycle, Ethereum You have successfully moved to a Layer 2-centric architecture. High-speed hash traffic has largely migrated to aggregators such as Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, where the availability of “big binary” data has reduced costs by 90%.
Ethereum Layer 1 It has evolved into the “backbone” of DeFi with a high-security, high-value settlement layer rather than a high-volume playground. Although the number of transactions is low, the total value locked (TVL) and institutional trust remain focused on the mainnet. With $1.2 billion in weekly inflows from ETFs recorded earlier this month, ETH is prioritizing its role as a premium institutional reserve asset over raw transaction numbers.
Future forecasts for SOL and ETH
Taking SOL into account, high transaction volume generates consistent fee revenue, although the low cost per transaction means the network is widely relied upon to maintain its economic base. In the case of Ethereum, the move to L2 has dramatically reduced the burn rate of Ethereum on the mainnet, creating a “value capture” challenge. With L1 fees remaining low (currently between $0.18 and $0.50), the deflationary pressure that once drove ETH’s price movement has eased.
if Solana If the network can maintain its weekly transaction pace of over 500 million while continuing to attract institutional stablecoin settlements, the “utility floor” for SOL will likely rise. A break above current structural resistance could see the asset test the $120 level as retail-led activity begins to translate into massive fee-based demand.
For ETH, the focus is not on the 15 million L1 transactions, but on the tens of thousands of transactions per second achieved through its L2 ecosystem. If the “semi-annual upgrades” continue to reduce the cost of L2 to L1 settlement, the economic activity generated by staking operations will eventually return to the mainnet’s security budget, which could push ETH towards the $3,500 region in the second half of the year.
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