Solana on-chain metrics hit annual highs

In December, Solana’s monthly active addresses and new addresses rose to annual highs as SOL’s price climbed.

On December 24, the token price rose to around $118 for the first time since April 2022. At the time of writing, the asset was trading just above $113, with a year-over-year gain of more than 890% (CoinGecko).

According to The Block, the number of monthly active addresses surpassed the January record of 15.24 million. The metric reached 15.66 million a week before December ended. 

A similar movement was demonstrated by the new-address metric, which in December reached 6.78 million. This is higher than the entire May — 6.65 million.

Experts explained the surge in activity in the network that underpins Solana’s growth by a wave of memetokens led by BONK. By year-end the stream of new airdrops shows no sign of slowing.

However, not all on-chain metrics rose in tandem. For example, the number of transactions involving SOL transfers declined to 578 million in December. At the April year-high the figure stood at 811 million.

The total value locked in DeFi protocols on Solana surpassed $1.42 billion (DeFi Llama). The year-over-year rise stood at 130%. In the ranking by this metric, the blockchain platform rose to fifth place, though it started the year outside the top 10.

Earlier, the hype around the BONK mem-token distribution led to a shortage of Saga smartphones from Solana Labs. In early December, the head of the company Anatoliy Yakovenko admitted weak smartphone sales.