Insights: Layer 1 & 2 Chains - February 2026

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Syndica Insights: Layer 1 & 2 Chains - February 2026

Solana led in unique wallets in February 2026.

In February 2026, Solana recorded 40M unique wallets, 4M more than BNB's 36M, and far exceeding all other major chains.

Solana ranks third in daily active addresses at 2.45M, behind Tron and BSC.

Solana averaged 2.45M daily active addresses in February (20% of tracked chains), behind Tron (28%) and BSC (24%). Solana's DAU peaked at 5.7M in November 2024 and has since settled in the 2.2-2.6M range.

Solana processes more transactions per second than all other tracked chains combined.

Solana's average TPS of 1,030 is 6x BSC (160), 8.5x Base (120), and 41x Ethereum (25). At P90, Solana reached 1,450 TPS; at P99, 1,940 TPS. No other chain broke 360 TPS even at P99.

Solana REV fell to $20.7M, third behind Hyperliquid and Tron.

Hyperliquid led REV at 41%, Tron followed at 16%, and Solana came third at 14%. Solana's REV has settled in the $20-50M range after peaking at $241M in January 2025.

Solana held its lead in DEX volume despite a market-wide decline.

Total DEX volume fell to $268B, the lowest since March 2025. Solana led at 36%, followed by Ethereum at 21%. Solana has held the top spot every month except August 2025.

Solana's perps share held near 5% in a rapidly growing and fragmented market.

Solana held steady at $34B in perps volume (5%), while Hyperliquid led at 28%. Both lost share over the past year (Solana from 12%, Hyperliquid from 60%) as newer participants entered the market.

Solana held second in TVL for 14 straight months.

Despite declining from $10B in January 2025 to $6.6B by February 2026, Solana maintained its second-place position behind Ethereum throughout the entire period.

Solana lending supply grew 39% and overtook Tron.

Total supplied to lending protocols reached $4.6B, up from $3.3B in January 2025. Only Ethereum holds more.

Borrowing on Solana was sustained despite the downturn.

Borrowing on Solana grew 38% since January 2025, rising from $1.3B to $1.8B even as the broader market cooled from its September 2025 peak.

Stablecoin supply on Solana tripled from $5B to $16B since January 2025.

Solana's stablecoin supply grew 3.1x since January 2025, twice the rate of the broader market. Its share doubled from 2.5% to 5.2%.

Solana stablecoins circulate faster than every major L1 except Base and Optimism.

Each dollar of supply turned over 63 times during the month, roughly 4x faster than Ethereum and 9x faster than Tron.

Sui and Solana led DEX capital efficiency.

Sui led at 4.5x spot volume per dollar of DEX TVL, with Solana second at 1.6x.

External L1 tokens on Solana hit a new ATH.

The value of non-Solana native assets on Solana reached a record $819M, with Bitcoin accounting for the majority.

Solana ranked fourth in bridge inflows for February.

Solana drew $200M in bridge inflows, placing fourth behind Arbitrum, Base, and Avalanche.

Solana ranked second in gold trading volume.

Solana trailed Ethereum as the second chain for Tether Gold trading volume at $75M, with its volume almost doubling from January.

Solana handled over half of x402 transfers since December 2025.

x402, an open protocol leveraging HTTP 402 "Payment Required" for instant stablecoin micropayments, enables AI agents and developers to pay per request for APIs, data, and content. Solana's leadership in x402 transfers underscores its dominance in the AI agent economy.

Solana captured the largest share of wrapped BTC traders since July 2025.

In February 2026, Solana held 52% of all WBTC traders and consistently led activity over the months. Solana also topped the BTC DEX volume-to-supply ratio, signaling deeper Bitcoin liquidity utilization on the network.