Solana's Emergence as the Liquidity Layer of Crypto: A 2025 Investment Analysis

In 2025, Solana has solidified its position as a critical liquidity layer in the crypto ecosystem, driven by explosive growth in on-chain dollar liquidity, decentralized exchange (DEX) volume, and real-world asset (RWA) adoption. This analysis examines Solana's metrics-stablecoin supply, DEX dominance, RWA expansion, and ecosystem builders-while contrasting its trajectory with Ethereum's, to assess its long-term investment appeal as a foundational infrastructure layer.

Stablecoin Supply: A Liquidity Powerhouse

Solana's total stablecoin supply has surged to an all-time high of $16.2 billion in 2025, outpacing both Bitcoin and Ethereum. This growth is fueled by the dominance of USDC and USDT, which collectively account for 78% of the supply. USDC alone holds $8 billion (58%), while USDT contributes $2.7 billion (20%) according to market data. Ripple's RLUSD has also gained traction, with its user base expanding from 750 to over 6,000 by mid-2025 and a market cap exceeding $1 billion as reported in 2025.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised concerns about Solana's rapid stablecoin growth, warning of potential disruptions. Meanwhile, the broader stablecoin market has expanded to $300 billion, with USDC and USDT dominating the landscape according to a 2025 market analysis. Solana's ability to attract and retain stablecoin liquidity underscores its role as a high-throughput, low-cost settlement layer for global on-chain transactions.

DEX Volume: Surpassing Centralized Exchanges

Solana's DEX ecosystem has become a cornerstone of its liquidity infrastructure. In Q3 2025, decentralized exchange volume on Solana reached $365 billion, surpassing centralized exchanges. Monthly trading volume consistently exceeds $120 billion, driven by protocols like Jupiter and Kamino according to industry reports.

While Ethereum maintained an 87% market share in decentralized trading volume in Q2 2025 (with $1 trillion in quarterly DEX volume) as per Q2 2025 data, Solana's DEXs captured 25–30% of global DEX volume, with Raydium alone facilitating up to 45% of Solana's DEX activity according to market analysis. This performance highlights Solana's technical advantages: its Alpenglow consensus upgrade improved transaction finality, and its high-throughput network (processing 65,000 transactions per second) has made it a preferred platform for high-frequency trading and memecoin speculation according to technical reports.

RWA Growth: Bridging Real-World Assets to On-Chain Liquidity

Solana's RWA adoption has surged by 372% in 2025, far outpacing Ethereum's 198% growth. Tokenized RWAs on Solana now represent $553.8 million in value, driven by yield-bearing assets like OUSG and USDY from Ondo Finance according to RWA market data. In contrast, Ethereum's RWA value grew to $7.7 billion from $4.3 billion at the start of the year according to institutional reports.

This divergence reflects Solana's focus on scalable, low-cost infrastructure for tokenizing real-world assets. By enabling faster and cheaper settlement of RWAs, Solana is positioning itself as a bridge between traditional finance and decentralized markets, a critical use case for long-term liquidity provision.

Key Builders: Phantom, Jupiter, and Kamino Finance

Solana's ecosystem is powered by builders like Phantom, Jupiter, and Kamino Finance, which have driven adoption and liquidity provision:
- Phantom, Solana's primary consumer gateway, has 3 million monthly average users (MAUs) and executed 200 million swaps worth $38 billion year-to-date according to user data.
- Jupiter, the leading DEX aggregator, processed $716 billion in token volumes in 2025 according to market analysis.
- Kamino Finance, a decentralized prime broker, retained $2.74 billion in deposits and $1.36 billion in outstanding borrows as of November 2025 according to financial reports.

These platforms have fostered a competitive environment, driving innovation in risk management. Solana's TVL surged above $11.3 billion by late 2025 according to TVL tracking data, outpacing Ethereum's weaker price performance (down 25.0% in H1 2025 vs. Solana's -19.1% drop) according to price data.

Ethereum's Ecosystem: Maturity vs. Scalability

Ethereum remains the dominant DeFi platform, with a $50 billion TVL supported by Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum and zkSync according to market analysis. Arbitrum, the largest Ethereum L2 by TVL, holds $19 billion and processes multi-million daily transactions according to L2 performance data. However, Ethereum's 15 transactions per second (TPS) and high gas fees have limited its appeal for high-frequency trading and retail speculation according to technical benchmarks.

While Ethereum's Layer 2s excel in composability and developer tooling, Solana's 65,000 TPS and $0.00025 per transaction cost have made it a preferred platform for applications requiring speed and low costs, such as gaming and AI-integrated dApps according to network performance reports. Regulatory clarity in 2025 (e.g., the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts) has further bolstered Ethereum's institutional adoption according to regulatory updates, but Solana's performance edge remains a key differentiator.

Long-Term Investment Appeal

Solana's emergence as a liquidity layer is underpinned by its ability to scale on-chain dollar liquidity while maintaining low costs. Its stablecoin supply, DEX volume, and RWA growth metrics outpace Ethereum's in 2025, supported by a vibrant ecosystem of builders. While Ethereum's maturity and security remain unmatched, Solana's technical advantages position it as a foundational infrastructure layer for the next phase of crypto adoption-particularly for applications requiring high throughput and real-time settlement.

For investors, Solana's focus on liquidity provision and network adoption metrics presents a compelling case. As the crypto market evolves toward institutional-grade infrastructure, Solana's role as a high-performance, low-cost liquidity layer could cement its status as a core asset in a diversified crypto portfolio.