Hi all, happy Tuesday!

First, a quick look at the Solana data: price, app revenue, and DEX volumes moved in lockstep for most of the year, until the last two weeks, when volumes and active addresses started pulling away from price. That decoupling is the thread we pull on today.

Today, we also cover why Solana’s shifting narratives, from tokenized equities to memes to perps, are better understood as one larger thesis: the everything exchange.

SOL and the Solana ecosystem haven’t had the best year from a price perspective, both down roughly 41%. 

For most of that drawdown, the move was fundamentally justified. Price has fallen in line with application revenue since January due to less demand for leverage, thinner fees, and a revenue base where much of the stack is denominated in or levered to SOL itself. As the token derated, the cash flows tied to it derated with it.

The same relationship held against DEX spot volumes for most of the year: lower price, lower turnover. Over the past two weeks, the two have decoupled. DEX volumes are up 27% while SOL has stayed roughly flat. Activity is climbing without price closely following it up.

Active addresses tell the same story, breaking from the year-long downtrend and turning higher even as SOL trades sideways.

The divergence is the part worth paying attention to. For most of 2026, Solana traded like a leveraged bet on its own fundamentals (volume, revenue, and addresses). The recent split says usage is no longer purely a function of where SOL trades. Something is pulling activity onto the chain that isn't the token's price action. A possible explanation is detailed below.

— Marc

The edge in markets has shifted from access to synthesis. As data becomes cheaper and AI makes traders faster, Button is building a workspace that turns fragmented feeds, scripts, watchlists and briefs into one agentic research layer.

Read the full report from Blockworks Research to understand why the next era of trading is about better decisions, not autonomous bots.

The everything exchange

Over the last few weeks, Solana has gained momentum as the “spot equities chain,” with tokenized stock volumes exploding on the back of Backpack’s listings of SPCX, MU, and SNDK. Solana now dominates onchain equity trading volume across chains, and it is not particularly close. Last week, tokenized asset volume on the chain hit a new all-time high of $1.43B. 

This week, memes are back.

The latest move in memecoin activity, seemingly catalyzed by Ansem, has shown up immediately in trading platform volumes and revenue. Daily revenue for Solana trading platforms such as Axiom, Phantom, and Fomo has risen sharply, with recent daily revenue approaching roughly 2x the levels seen earlier in the month.

So, which one is it? The equities chain or the memes chain?

A few years ago, Solana was the NFT chain. Then it was dead. Then it was the memecoin chain. Then it was dead again. Then it was Internet Capital Markets. Then it was dead again. Then it was going to compete on perps. Then spot equities took off. Now memes are back.

The mistake is treating each new category as Solana’s identity. The better framing is simpler: Solana is the everything exchange.

The chain itself is not pushing a single narrative. Activity keeps happening there because the users are there, retail distribution is there, trading infrastructure is there, and builders keep building regardless of market conditions or the flavor of the week.

Last week, tokenized assets briefly surpassed memes as a share of Solana spot volume, becoming the second-largest pair category behind SOL-stablecoin pairs. Yesterday, memes were back in second place. The asset class changes, but the venue stays the same.

Memes and tokenized equities sit on opposite ends of the “seriousness” spectrum, but both point to the same underlying market structure: Solana is where spot trading activity happens.

The clearest example is the comparison between Solana spot volume and major CEXs. On the latest daily data, only Binance is doing more spot volume than Solana. Solana is no longer just competing with other chains for onchain volume. On active days, it is increasingly comparable to major centralized exchanges.

It is also funny how quickly people have stopped talking about Solana perps.

Less than a month ago, perps were supposed to be Solana’s sole focus. The reason: Hyperliquid has built an incredible product, HIP-3 markets were capturing all the mindshare, and Solana builders believed the chain had the capabilities to support similar activity.

Perps on Solana may still take off. But the ecosystem should be careful not to force a narrative simply because it worked elsewhere. Solana’s clearest strength today is spot trading. That strength applies across asset classes: SOL, stablecoins, memes, tokenized equities, foreign tokens, LSTs, and whatever comes next.

Solana should focus on what it already does well, not only on what it lacks.

MetaDAO is a good example. Permissionless capital formation and decision markets are among the most ambitious frontiers in crypto, yet they remain underappreciated. Laso Finance’s MetaDAO raise starting today is a timely reminder of that: Laso is building crypto payments infrastructure that lets users spend stablecoins through prepaid cards. Solana’s edge is not just listing new assets; it’s becoming the venue where new markets form.

— Carlos

Button: Productizing the Synthesis Stack

Sam Schubert from Blockworks Research published a piece on Button, arguing that the edge in trading has shifted from access to synthesis: the best traders no longer win by owning proprietary data, but by turning cheap, abundant information into a decision faster than everyone else. The piece says AI helps with that synthesis layer – reading, coding, backtesting, and summarizing – but does not yet work as an autonomous trader.

It then profiles Button as a product built around this thesis: a workspace where an agent writes Python, plugs into data feeds and accounts, stores strategies and watchlists, and uses a personalized “knowledge graph” to reason through the trader’s own view of the world. The core pitch is that agentic finance won’t replace discretionary traders; it will make good ones faster and better informed.

Plasma: The XPL Dilemma

Carlos from Blockworks Research published a note on Plasma, arguing that XPL is one of the cleaner liquid token ways to underwrite the stablecoin neobank theme, but that the investment case depends less on current chain monetization and more on whether fast Plasma One growth can turn into durable token demand before incentives and unlocks hit.

Plasma One is showing sharp early traction in cardholders, deposits, and spend, and the product’s tiering creates visible token utility through XPL locks, with Platinum members alone reportedly locking more than 40M XPL so far. But the report notes that chain fees and burn are still negligible, incentives remain meaningful, and only about 25% of supply is circulating today, with major team and investor unlocks beginning in roughly three months. The core question, then, is whether app-level economics, card-tier locks, and broader network activity can outpace that supply overhang and make XPL’s value capture real rather than just narrative.