Google data indicates that Solana is being searched globally more than ever before. Google Trends, which tracks the popularity of a keyword on a weekly basis, showed that this week global interest in Solana has reached a 100-point popularity peak over a five-year period, surpassing the previous peak in the last week of December 2023.
Solana Breaks Records in On-Chain Metrics
The growing interest in the Layer-1 blockchain network Solana is also reflected in on-chain data. On March 15, Solana’s on-chain volume exceeded $3.79 billion, reaching an all-time high.
According to blockchain data analytics platform DefiLlama, the volume in the last 24 hours was around $3 billion in Asia on March 18. Data from The Block Data Dashboard indicates that the number of new addresses in the Solana ecosystem continues to reach all-time highs, with approximately 870,000 new addresses created on the network on March 16.
According to The Block Data Dashboard, the daily transaction fee amount, which was around $500,000 in January, rose to $3.83 million on March 16. Meanwhile, the price of Solana increased by 0.6% in the last 24 hours to $202.97 at the time of writing. Over the weekend, Solana surpassed BNB to become the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market value.
Memecoin Culture and Solana
A significant part of Solana’s surge in popularity is attributed to the hype surrounding Solana-based memecoin projects. Rachael Lucas, marketing and communications manager at BTC Markets, commented on the matter on March 15:
“In addition to memecoin projects like Bonk and dogwifhat (WIF), tokens inspired by political events also gained attention and increased interest and activity in the Solana ecosystem.”
Lucas pointed to the successful $700,000 campaign by Dogwifhat owners to advertise the memecoin logo in Las Vegas, which led to the token’s value rising above $3. Lucas added:
“The success of the campaign has sparked discussions in the crypto industry about the market overheating.”
Amid speculation of a bubble in the current crypto bull cycle, Bitcoin‘s price retreated from its weekend record gains to $65,000 on March 17, but was trading at $68,300 at the time of writing.
