The crypto market didn’t perform well in the first quarter of 2026, but some coins still reached major milestones. Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is one of the best examples, as the total economic activity on its network hit $1.1 trillion for the quarter, according to data from Artemis. That’s a new high for the blockchain.
It’s a staggering number, but it didn’t do much for Solana’s value. Solana is down 26% on the year (as of May 15), raising the question of why there’s such a gap between its activity and price.
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Details on Solana’s $1.1 trillion quarter
Solana’s $1.1 trillion in total economic activity refers to all the value transacted on its blockchain. This includes stablecoin transfers, which accounted for $832.7 billion of the activity, or about 76%, as well as decentralized crypto trading, crypto lending, and all other on-chain transactions.
The grand total isn’t the only promising sign. Solana saw its number of active users grow, an impressive feat during a bear market. The number of active addresses was above 5 million for much of the quarter, after generally ranging from 3 million to 4 million during the fourth quarter of 2025.
Solana also processed 25.3 billion transactions during the most recent quarter, well ahead of any other blockchain. BNB Chain was a distant second with 1.7 billion. The number of transactions Solana processed in the quarter without any downtime shows how reliable its network has become.
What’s next for Solana?
Solana is one of the most widely used blockchains because of its speed and low transaction fees that cost just a fraction of $0.01. While that makes it popular with everyday users, major financial institutions are also building on Solana.
Last year, BlackRock launched the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, a tokenized money market fund, on Solana. In December, Visa launched settlement of the USDC stablecoin on Solana for U.S. banks. And earlier this month, JPMorgan Asset Management and Anchorage Digital introduced a tokenized instrument for cashless stablecoin reserves on the Solana blockchain.
These are some of the most successful financial companies on the planet. Given that and Solana’s activity levels, there are plenty of reasons to be positive about its future.
This good news hasn’t helped Solana’s price so far, but crypto has been in a bear market. Other top altcoins, including Ethereum, XRP, and BNB, have also dropped over 20% on the year. This kind of volatility is one of the reasons that investing in cryptocurrency is inherently risky.
