Solana dominated major cryptocurrencies in real economic value (REV) and DEX volumes during the first half of 2025, according to Helius’ “Solana Ecosystem Report H1 2025.”
The report highlighted that Solana has led all blockchains in REV since October 2024 and reached $551 million in January 2025.
REV is a metric that measures the monetary demand for using a blockchain’s network for transactions, including base transaction fees and out-of-protocol tips.
Daily REV hit $56.8 million on January 19, surpassing the combined value of Ethereum and Bitcoin.
Notably, Jito tips contributed between 42% and 66% of monthly REV, showing that users pay sizable premiums for priority execution and confirming a mature market for maximum extractable value (MEV) that channels revenue to validators without increasing median fees.
Daily transactions top 160M
The report noted that the fee structure allowed Solana to absorb traffic spikes, such as January’s TRUMP memecoin frenzy, while maintaining a median fee of nearly $0.003.
The network processed approximately 162 million transactions daily, with an average slot time of around 390 milliseconds (ms), and has not halted since February 2024.
According to the report, the upcoming Alpenglow consensus code, currently in the testing phase, aims for a finality of 100 to 150 ms and reduces validator breakeven capital to approximately $75,000.
The total value locked averaged between $8 billion and $9 billion during the first half of 2025, with an 18% quarter-on-quarter increase, placing Solana second only to Ethereum.
Jupiter’s platform for perpetual swaps handled approximately $1 billion in daily volume and accounted for 79% of the on-chain perps market, while trading bots executed roughly half of all swaps.
Liquid staking token JitoSOL kept about 39% of the staking share. The network settled 81% of all DEX trades in 2024 and cleared $890 billion in DEX trading volume during the first five months of 2025.
Real-world traction expands off-chain reach
The stablecoin float on Solana increased from $1.5 billion to $11.7 billion in 18 months, with Circle minting $1.75 billion in USDC in May alone.
Telecom app Helium Mobile added approximately 300,000 subscribers in the first quarter.
The report added that crowdsourced-mapping project Hivemapper covered 30% of the global roads, and the tokenized-asset marketplace Baxus logged an 11,500% increase in crypto payments, alongside a 50-fold rise in overseas buyers.