Solana in Q2 2024: Insights from Messari Research

Messari analyst Peter Horton recently put together an in-depth report on the State of Solana, covering recent developments in ecosystem growth, product, and network activity for Q2 2024. 

Here’s some highlights you won’t want to miss from the full report:

1. Institutions are building on Solana

Stripe showcased an upcoming payments solution on Solana, leveraging the popular Phantom wallet during a live demo. Soon after, PayPal brought its PYUSD stablecoin to the Solana blockchain, citing token extensions as a pivotal factor in expanding to Solana. One extension, transfer hooks, enables developers to incorporate custom programmable logic into each transaction, enhancing flexibility and functionality.

2. PayFi has arrived

Helio's Solana Pay Plugin on Shopify saved Solana Labs over $1 million in fees for Chapter2 sales compared to traditional payments methods. Now, it's even more versatile: Users can pay in their preferred token, near-instantly swapping to the merchant's preferred currency via Jupiter Exchange .

3. Solana is breaking down barriers to entry

TipLink 's Wallet Adapter now provides Google account holders with instant access to a Solana wallet, simplifying onboarding for new users.

Soon after, blinks (blockchain links) connected Solana to the entire internet, bringing Solana Actions to millions of active X users. Now, you can vote, mint, swap, and donate directly from your feed. Adoption is quickly accelerating: Messari reported blinks for 20 dApps like Helium, Sphere, and Tensor at publication, while Dialect’s blinks registry shows over 200 blinks today. 

4. The ecosystem is working hard on scaling solutions

ZK compression, pioneered by Light Protocol and Helius , went live on testnet and drops the state cost for 1M addresses by ~99.9% by storing data via the ledger.

MagicBlock Labs unveiled MagicBlock Engine, which enhances SVM customizability and performance without sacrificing composability. It implements ephemeral rollups: temporary runtimes that mirror programs and accounts from mainnet to improve efficiency before settling state back on Solana. The best part? It's all abstracted away from the user.

5. Solana DeFi is flourishing, led by Liquid Staking Token (LST) growth

Liquid staking tokens enable users to utilize tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols while still being staked to secure the proof-of-stake Solana network. Liquid staking rate jumped from 5.2% to 6.4%, with Sanctum's LST market share expanding 3,700% QoQ.

If you’re intrigued and want to learn more, you can dive into the full report here, which covers plenty more regarding developments in payments, real world assets (RWAs), decentralized physical infrastructure networks, and much more happening in the ecosystem.