The first quarter of the year saw a significant improvement in Solana’s performance, with its market cap rising by 118% and a number of ecosystem improvements boosting fee payer and transaction activity. With Marinade Finance, Lido, Jito, and JPool boosting their TVL by 100% or more over the course of the quarter, liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) continued to sustain the Solana ecosystem. Other protocols’ TVLs also increased, including those for Orca, Raydium, and Solend. According to Messari’s data, daily new NFTs increased by 12%, while USD sales volume increased by 36%. With 889,000 unique buyers and 887,000 unique sellers, buyers outnumbered sellers.
After the FTX Implosion, there were rumors of a developer exodus due to Solana’s close ties to Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, but as more applications were released, the user base increased. Special offers such as Binance Free $100 and PrimeXBT Special Offers were launched to increase and stabilize active programs.
