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– Jeffrey Kendrick, head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, attributes this situation to a shift in the structure of transactions on decentralized exchanges (DEX).

“When we started looking at Solana in May 2025, we saw that activity on the network was predominantly centered around trading meme tokens on DEX, he says. “The transaction pattern on DEX changed from memcoin trading to SOL-stablecoin pairs.

This shift, Kendrick estimates, picked up pace in 2025 as funds shifted from meme-centric transactions, which he says peaked in mid-January with the launch of the Trump token, to tokenized dollars. It follows that DEX’s work on Solana is starting to look more like a payments infrastructure than a one-time playground, even if overall turnover is down slightly.

Standard Chartered also highlighted Solana’s extremely low transaction fees as a significant factor for use in micropayments, including AI-initiated payments, where even minimal costs can undermine the economic viability of a transaction.

One of the most telling points in the report is the turnover rate of stablecoins: According to Kendrick, the turnover rate of stablecoins on Solana is already double or triple that of Ethereum, indicating Solana’s potential niche for high-frequency and small transfers.

The bank attributes this potential to “internet-native” payment protocols such as Coinbase’s x402, but cautions that this shift will take time to achieve market leadership.

This slower progression explains why Standard Chartered predicts Solana could lag behind Ethereum in 2026-2027, even though the bank is positive about Solana’s long-term prospects should the need for micropayments grow.