Solana transaction count rose 45% in the third quarter, while memecoin trading was the main source of a 49% increase in total transaction fees.
According to a Bitwise report cited by The Block, the Solana network recorded 14.2 billion transactions in the third quarter of 2026. Despite the increase in transaction count compared with the previous quarter, the average cost per transaction remained largely unchanged.
By contrast, total transaction fees on the network rose 49% to $76 million. The increase in fees therefore stemmed from higher transaction activity, not from users paying proportionally more for each transaction.
Memecoin transactions stand out
Bitwise attributed most of the increase in total fees to memecoin trading. These transactions stood out as the main indicator of which use case was driving the rise in activity on Solana.
During the same period, trading volume in tokenized stocks on the network also rose 45% to more than $6.9 billion. Thus, alongside memecoins, volume also grew in products that bring traditional stocks on-chain.
Ethereum network revenue declines
On Ethereum, the figure identified as network revenue in the report fell from $63 million in the second quarter to about $40.6 million. This represents a quarter-over-quarter decline of about 36%.
We previously covered findings from the same Bitwise report on the record amount of Ethereum staked. The network revenue data show that revenue moved in the opposite direction even as the amount of staked ETH grew.
The $76 million figure for Solana refers to total transaction fees, while the $40.6 million figure for Ethereum refers to network revenue. Rather than comparing the two figures directly as a ranking of the same revenue category, it is necessary to look at each network’s quarter-over-quarter change.
Not investment advice.