As 2026 kicks off, the market is taking stock of 2025.
Despite all the volatility, there were some clear divergences that set the stage for renewed rallies. Solana [SOL] is a perfect example. Last year, SOL showed a big disconnect between its fundamentals and price action.
While it closed 2025 as the “worst-performing asset” with a 34.16% pullback, it still dominated Layer 1s across key on-chain metrics, highlighting strong underlying activity that the market didn’t fully price in.
Take transactions per second (TPS), for instance. SOL averaged 1.1k TPS.
As the chart above shows, Solana led the L1 pack, marking a 34% YoY increase from 2024. Zooming in further, that’s a nearly 160% gap versus Binance Smart Chain [BSC], which came in second at roughly 130 TPS.
Yet, BNB still closed the year up 24%, clearly outperforming SOL on price. This raises the obvious question: Can Solana’s price finally catch up to its fundamentals in 2026? Notably, one key divergence suggests it might.
Solana’s L1 dominance shines amid memecoin resurgence
Memecoins are making a clear comeback this cycle.
Less than a week into 2026, the combined market cap of memecoins has jumped roughly 30%, pointing to renewed risk appetite. Naturally, with Solana hosting top memes, the network is seeing strong capital inflows.
Technically, Bonk [BONK] is leading with a 58% weekly gain, but the real momentum is on the launchpad side. Volumes have hit a three-month high of $228 million, with LetsBonk.fun driving almost 73% of the inflows.
Put simply, Solana is seeing a solid memecoin resurgence.
Why does it matter? Solana makes up about 15% of the total memecoin market cap, and its top two launchpads alone saw $220 million in trading volume. That’s nearly 97% of memecoin activity on the network.
Solana’s TPS is key here. After dominating in speed through 2025, this memecoin rally isn’t a fluke. Instead, it underscores SOL’s L1 strength in throughput and execution, making it a key divergence for the 2026 cycle.
Final Thoughts
- Despite a 34.16% pullback in 2025, Solana led in TPS, showing strong on-chain fundamentals.
- With $228 million in launchpad volume and top memes like BONK driving inflows, SOL’s network activity highlights Layer 1 strength.
