Pump.fun remained Solana’s largest revenue generator in the first quarter of 2026, reaching $124.7 million, or more than a third of the network’s $342.2 million in total app revenue, despite its memecoin-chilling activity.
The memecoin startup’s revenue grew 17% quarter-on-quarter, which means its core business remains buoyant, Messari said in its report Solana’s report for the first quarter.
Launchpads generated $144 million in the first quarter, representing approximately 42% of Solana’s total app revenue. Bags was a standout in the industry, with its quarterly revenue increasing 1,347% to $11.5 million, fueled by the artificial intelligence-themed memecoin wave that took place in January. The rapid growth proved short-lived, and by February monthly revenues had dropped by 85%.
Solana’s revenues. source: Messari
Solana’s memecoin revenues are continuing even as the network increasingly attracts a wider range of users and major institutions such as BlackRock, Visa and JPMorgan expand their presence in its payments and tokenization ecosystem.
“Memecoins do not define Solana” – Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, he said in a recent interview.
Related: MoonPay acquires DFlow, adding Solana trading infrastructure
Trading and RWA applications are growing on Solana
Solana’s commerce applications were the fastest-growing sector overall in the quarter, with revenue increasing 40% to $79 million. Axiom led the pack with $42.4 million, making it the second-most revenue-generating app on the web.
Elsewhere, Solana’s real asset market capitalization exceeded $2 billion, up 43% in the quarter, driven by BlackRock’s BUIDL doubling to $525 million after Anchorage Digital added custody support.
DeFi’s total locked value dropped 22% to $6.16 billion, although Messari researchers attributed the decline mainly to the 33% price cut for SOL rather than users leaving the company. This network’s share of the total DeFi TVL remained roughly constant at 6.7%.
RWA is increasing in Solana thanks to institutional inflows. source: Messari
On the infrastructure side, the focus is on Alpenglow, a broad consensus update to release Agave 4.1. If the shipment is delivered as planned, the update will reduce Solana’s transaction completion time from approximately 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds.
Related: Solana Customers Present Falcon Post-Quantum Solution
Goldman Sachs exits Solana’s positions
As Cointelegraph reports, Goldman Sachs exited its positions in the Solana ETF in the first quarter of 2026, exiting its holdings in Grayscale, Bitwise and Fidelity funds.
Italy’s largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, also nearly liquidated its Solana position in the first quarter of 2026, reducing its holdings in Bitwise’s Solana ETF from 266,320 shares to just 2,817, even as it more than doubled its total cryptocurrency holdings to $235 million by accumulating them in Bitcoin ETFs from ARK 21Shares and BlackRock.
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