Key takeaways:

• Solana outperforms Ethereum in high-yield DApps, providing basic protection against recent price declines.

• Ethereum’s growing dominance in Layer 2 poses a challenge for SOL as investors monitor the critical $80 support level for a retest.

Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), saw an 11% correction after being rejected at $93 last Wednesday. Over the past week, SOL has lagged the broader cryptocurrency market, repeatedly testing the $80 support level. Solana’s network fees have also fallen over the past two months, leaving investors concerned about a potential retest of the $75 level.

The total value locked (TVL) on Solana was $6.3 billion, although the gap remains vast compared to Ethereum’s $54.1 billion. However, over the last 30 days, Solana has accumulated 80% more network fees than its main competitor. This difference is largely due to Ethereum’s incentives for Layer 2 rollups, which operate transient blocks of data to reduce costs.

Solana’s network fees dropped to $18.5 million in March, down 42% from January’s $30 million. Most of this decline is due to lower activity in decentralized currency exchange (DEX) volumes. Despite maintaining its leadership position in absolute terms, Solana DEX volume fell to $55.5 billion, its lowest level since September 2024, according to DefiLlama data.

By comparison, Ethereum DEX volume was $41 billion in March, down 23% from two months earlier. More importantly, after the aggregation of Ethereum’s Layer 2 blockchains such as Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism, Ethereum’s DEX market share increased to 42% in March from 33% in January. Solana’s dominance is gradually being challenged, which partially explains the current SOL bear dynamics.

Solana DApps revenue could solidify SOL’s $80 support level

While Solana’s DEX volume is sinking, no other network can match the number of DApps earning at least $1 million in 30 days. This data provides a powerful incentive for developers to join Solana, creating opportunities for user feedback through protocols such as Pump, Helium Network, and ORE Protocol. As protocol revenues attract investor attention, a fit ecosystem remains extremely significant to SOL’s profits.

Related: Solana puts Mastercard and Western Union on recent development platform

Solana leads the way with 13 DApps that have brought in at least $1 million in revenue in the last 30 days. For comparison, runner-up Ethereum had 11 DApps, while BNB Chain and Base had a total of 4 DApps, each with monthly revenues of $1 million or more. So there is little indication that the SOL price will need to retest $75 solely due to lower network fees resulting from tender DEX volumes.

DEX activity is a major driver of network fees, but the sustainability of protocols in the Solana ecosystem shows that investors have no intention of abandoning SOL.