Solana Dominates Crypto Attention for Second Straight Year: Analysis

Solana captured 26.79% of global interest in blockchain-specific narratives throughout 2025, securing its position as the most popular crypto ecosystem for the second consecutive year despite facing mounting competition and declining market share.

Base and Ethereum rounded out the top three positions while newer entrants like Sui and BNB Chain surged into prominence, according to CoinGecko’s latest blockchain ecosystem analysis.

The layer-1 network’s market share dropped 12.0 percentage points from 38.79% in 2024, due to struggles to expand beyond meme-coin speculation even as institutional adoption accelerated through U.S. ETF launches.

The decline pushed Solana out of the top five most popular crypto narratives ranking after being overtaken by AI agents and Made in USA themes.

Base and Ethereum Hold Ground

Coinbase’s Base ecosystem maintained second place with 13.94% of investor interest, down 2.9 percentage points from 16.81% in 2024.

The smaller decline came despite major developments, including the Coinbase Wallet rebrand into the Base app, Shopify’s USDC payment integration, and x402 facilitation rollout.

Ethereum secured third position with 13.43% mindshare, posting a 2.7 percentage point year-over-year increase that narrowed its gap with Base.

The growth occurred while investors remained critical about ETH price performance and the blockchain’s competitive positioning amid intensifying rivalry from faster networks.

However, Ethereum’s scaling layer faces severe consolidation pressure, as Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism now process nearly 90% of all L2 transactions, with Base alone accounting for over 60%.

According to 21Shares, most of the 50-plus competing L2s are unlikely to survive through 2026 as smaller rollups have seen activity plunge 61% since June, creating what analysts call ‘zombie chains’ with minimal usage and evaporating liquidity.

Sui and BNB Chain Double Their Market Presence

Sui and BNB Chain emerged as the year’s biggest gainers, after more than doubling their market share to claim fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

Sui recorded the largest growth, with a 6.9 percentage-point jump to 11.77%, positioning itself close behind Ethereum and establishing credibility as a serious competitor in chain-specific narratives.

BNB Chain captured 9.05% mindshare following a 4.9 percentage point increase, driven by Binance Alpha’s May launch that propelled the network to lead onchain trading volumes.

The ecosystem also benefited from founder CZ’s renewed involvement and resilient BNB price action throughout the year.

Solana’s momentum continued to build through major platform integrations, as Coinbase activated native DEX trading for Solana tokens in its mobile application in early December, allowing users to swap assets on-chain for the first time.

The exchange separately announced plans to acquire Vector, a Solana-native trading platform, in a deal expected to close by year-end.

New Entrants Reshape Competitive Landscape

XRP Ledger and Bittensor led new additions to the top rankings, with XRP securing sixth place at 4.68% mindshare and the AI-focused Bittensor capturing 1.91% for ninth position.

Berachain and Abstract also broke into the top 20 among new ecosystems tracked this year.

Hyperliquid delivered the most dramatic rise after increasing from 0.01% mindshare in 2024 to 1.57% this year, climbing 44 positions in the rankings.

The perpetuals-focused platform marked a key stablecoin milestone with its USDH launch while building robust DEX infrastructure and community engagement that demonstrated scalability beyond single-product offerings.

Meanwhile, the TON ecosystem saw its ranking slide following a 5.0 percentage-point year-over-year decline in mindshare, contrasting sharply with Sui’s ascent as a serious contender for a chain-specific narrative.

Notably, Jupiter reinforced Solana’s ecosystem depth by announcing seven coordinated upgrades at Breakpoint, headlined by JupUSD stablecoin developed with Ethena.

The Solana DEX, which processed $1.08 trillion in combined spot and perpetual volume year-to-date while maintaining $2.7 billion in total value locked, also exited beta for Jupiter Lend after reaching $1 billion in supply within eight days.

Bhutan further validated Solana’s institutional appeal by launching TER, a gold-backed digital token running on the network and distributed through DK Bank.

The sovereign-backed initiative positions Bhutan among nations experimenting with state-issued tokenized assets while leveraging Solana’s speed and efficiency.