7,625 Reasons Why Solana Might Win ✌️
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Happy Friday, token explorers! Pour yourself something strong – we're diving deep into crypto's most fascinating talent battle.
How 7,625 developers chose Solana over Ethereum
The rise of Raydium: Uniswap's unexpected challenger
Inside Asia's new crypto developer revolution
What Chainalysis tracking Solana memes really means
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Before we get started with today’s story, we have an editorial note for our readers.
Correction: In yesterday’s Token Dispatch edition - ‘Stablecoins Making the USD stronger?’, we incorrectly stated that stablecoin transaction volume ($5.5T) exceeded Visa's annual payment volume. We apologise for the oversight. We thank our subscriber and reader - Paul Park, Director of Visa Crypto at Visa Inc, for bringing this to our notice. The updated edition shows stablecoin volume is about 40% of Visa's $13.2T annual payment volume as of September 2024. We remain committed to accurate reporting and thank our readers for their understanding.With that done, let’s get going, shall we?
39,148 new developers explored crypto in 2024.
7,625 chose Solana.
That's the story of 2024 that's got everyone talking.
For the first time in eight years, a blockchain has done the unthinkable - outpacing Ethereum in developer growth.
Beat Ethereum at its own game - attracting developers?
Not just by a little … by 83%.
The "Ethereum killer" narrative? It's not just about price anymore.
This time, it's about talent. And Solana's pulling ahead.
Electric Capital reveals global crypto developer data.
The story becomes even more interesting when you look at where these developers are coming from.
Asia (32%), particularly India, has emerged as the new frontier for blockchain development.
Indian developers now represent 27% of Solana's ecosystem, making it the only country where new developers are joining Solana faster than any other blockchain. Europe has 31% share of the devs.
Remember 2015?
North America and Europe: 80%
Asia: Barely on the map
India: Not even in the conversation
But before Ethereum maximalists start sweating, here's the reality check.
While Solana's winning the race for new talent, Ethereum's still the heavyweight champion.
How heavy?
6,244 monthly active Ethereum developers
8,925 developers in total EVM ecosystem
3.6x larger than Solana's Virtual Machine
Dominates every continent
Block That Quote 🎙
Maria Shen, General Partner at Electric Capital
"Ethereum absolutely dominates. Ethereum has very, very deep network effects, and you can see that through the data."
Since last week, Ethereum ETFs saw record-breaking inflows of $1.2 billion in new cash, pushing ETH past $4,000 for the first time since March.
CryptoQuant analysts are now eyeing $5,000 as the next milestone, citing "renewed investor demand" and increased network activity.
Since Ethereum doubled down on its rollup-centric roadmap, developer attention has split. A striking 56% of Ethereum developers now work on layer-2 solutions like Base (4,287 developers), Arbitrum (3,450), and Starknet (2,548). What was once a monolithic empire is becoming a federation of interconnected kingdoms.
Meanwhile, Solana's allure isn't just about raw numbers. the developers in Solana are building things people actually use.
But why Solana?
Because.. Solana has been the token of this year.
In December 2022, you could buy a Solana token for $9.
Today, that same token costs $225. That's a 2,400% return in just 24 months.
SOL also went past its previous ATH to hit $263 in November 2024.
But what makes this rally particularly fascinating is how it stacks up against crypto's traditional powerhouse, Ethereum.
While SOL was making its 25x move, ETH made a 3x move ($1,200 to $3,880) in the same period – a respectable 223%.
Seems almost modest by comparison.
The numbers tell an interesting story about market psychology.
Ethereum, with its $468 billion market cap and steady institutional adoption, moves like a blue chip. Its daily trading volume of $44 billion suggests serious money at work, but the kind that prefers gradual appreciation to explosive gains.
Solana, on the other hand, has been trading like it has something to prove. And maybe it does. That $9 price point wasn't just a random dip – it was the market's brutal verdict on the FTX collapse and Solana's perceived dependence on Sam Bankman-Fried's empire.
Today's $225 price tag isn't just about price recovery – it's the market's way of saying Solana has successfully shed its "Sam coin" image. With $6 billion in daily volume and a $107 billion market cap, it's now firmly established itself as crypto's fifth-largest asset.
And it's not just about tech.
The memecoin effect
Pump.fun revolutionised token launches
Network activity surged
User engagement skyrocketed
New use cases emerged
And the new devs love Solana.
Bitcoin Ecosystem?
1,200 monthly active developers (stable over 12 months)
42% focused on L2s, NFTs, and scaling solutions
Zero-Knowledge Development?
2,054 monthly active ZK developers
823 full-time ZK positions
ZK contract deployments grew from 40 (2020) to 639 (2024)
Major ZK activity on Ethereum, Base, and Optimism
Electric Capital's report also shows.
Veteran developers staying put
Newcomers from bear market leaving
Full-time dev count stable
Global talent pool expanding
Is this the beginning of Solana's takeover?
Or is Ethereum's network effect too strong to overcome?
One thing's clear: The developer wars are just getting started. Read on …
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In The Numbers 🔢
23,613
That's the number of monthly active developers in crypto as of November 2024 - of the estimated 27 million software developers worldwide.
0.0875% of global software devs
2000% increase over last decade
Down from 31,000 peak in 2022
But veteran count growing
What matters here is how an industry that's captured less than a tenth of a percent of global developer talent managed to spark such an intense battle for their attention.
Raydium Dethrones Uniswap
For the first time since DeFi summer, we're seeing serious competition to Ethereum's dominance in decentralised trading.
Raydium, a Solana-based exchange, has just achieved something remarkable: it's beaten Ethereum's crown jewel, Uniswap.
RAY, Raydium's native token, has surged 746% in the past year, with its price hitting $5.23 atm. But more impressive is its dominance of Solana's trading landscape – it now handles 41% of all Solana transactions.
What's driving this growth? memecoins. They account for 65% of Raydium's monthly volume, making it the go-to destination for the internet's favourite form of financial entertainment.
Chainalysis Eyes Solana Memes 🔍
Chainalysis, the blockchain detective agency trusted by governments worldwide, has announced it's expanding its surveillance to cover every token created on Solana’s Pump.fun — the platform that turned memecoin creation into a point-and-click adventure.
The timing is no coincidence.
Pump.fun has become crypto's most successful app launch ever, but with that success came a dark statistic: 95% of its memecoins end up "rugged" within 24 hours of launch, according to research from crypto analyst Ogle.
What's cooking?
They're now tracking every single Solana token from birth.
Yes, even those 5-minute-old Pump.fun memes you're aping into.
Instant compliance tools to exchanges
Scam-tracking abilities to governments
Complete transaction history
Real-time alerting systems
The Token Dispatch View 🔍
Look deeper into this and you'll see three converging stories.
First, there's the price. SOL's rise from $9 to $225 in 24 months – it's about redemption. The market has decisively rejected the "Sam coin" narrative.
Second, there's the platform war. Raydium's triumph over Uniswap in trading volume signals that the DeFi crown is up for grabs. When a Solana DEX can process $124.6 billion in monthly volume and beat Ethereum's flagship exchange by 30%, something fundamental has shifted.
Finally, and most importantly, there's the talent migration. With 83% more developer growth than Ethereum and dominance in emerging markets like India, Solana is writing a new chapter in blockchain's geographic distribution of power.
Yet Ethereum's moat remains formidable. With 3.6x more developers than Solana's ecosystem and institutional money pouring into ETH ETFs, the question isn't whether Ethereum will fall – it's whether crypto has room for two empires.
The Surfer 🏄
L1 blockchain Avalanche has raised $250 million through a private token sale led by firms such as Galaxy Digital and Dragonfly. Meanwhile, its Total Value Locked (TVL) reached a two-year high of $1.61 billion.
Ukraine is set to legalise cryptocurrencies by early 2025, with a draft bill currently being finalised in collaboration with the National Bank and the IMF.
Australia's ASIC Digital Assets Lead Rhys Bollen likened Bitcoin to cigarettes used as currency in prisons, during a recent meeting on crypto regulation.
BlackRock recommends that investors allocate between 1% and 2% of their portfolios to Bitcoin, citing its volatility and comparing the risk to that of major tech stocks in the "Magnificent Seven." The firm now holds $52 billion worth of Bitcoin, or nearly half of the sector’s market share.
Animoca Brands' Yat Siu predicts that NFTs will surpass their 2021 peak, viewing them as investments in reputation similar to owning a Picasso.
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