Solana, the once-championed Ethereum Killer, has recorded a substantial uptick in smart contract deployment on its platform. The latest chart from data aggregator Artemis showed that SOL’s contracts reached a record year-to-date, with around 152 contracts deployed.
It should be noted that the spike is the second of its kind to occur within a 30-day period, suggesting that new projects are commencing on the platform. One of the most important elements in the development of decentralized finance [DeFi] is smart contracts. Whereas Total Value Locked, or TVL, acts as the key gauge of general support for a given protocol or decentralized application [dApp].
Per a July 14 report, Solana was one of the top 10 networks with the most TVL growth, with an average daily growth of over 17%, a weekly increase of over 22%, and a monthly surge of over 38%. In addition, the layer-1 network has observed a positive increase in the platform’s user base, indicating notable growth when viewed in the context of other key metrics.
The number of people who are actively using the Solana ecosystem has been trending slightly upward since last week. Looking at the Sol scan data, it was discovered that on July 17, there were about 296k active wallets registered, up from 246k the previous day. Which, however, came up just shy of the 358k+ peak recorded on June 26.
Solana Continues To Expand To More Developer Ecosystems
Overall, Solana’s second quarter of 2023 was marked by a surge in developer activity, with numerous innovative dApps and projects being built on the platform. For instance, Solana opened doors to Ethereum developers with the recent Neon EVM integration.
In the past, layer 2 solutions like rollups or sidechains were frequently utilized by EVM DApps to assure cost efficiency. But now that Neon EVM has been released on Solana, developers have not only an alternative option but also a chance to take advantage of Solana’s astonishingly cheap average transaction cost of just 0.00001 SOL [$0.0002] per transaction.
In contrast, Ethereum charges a transaction fee of about $2 on average. Despite regulatory challenges and numerous delistings, Solana remained resilient and finished as a top 10 crypto asset in Q2. Currently, SOL is trading at $26.35, having risen by over 70% in the past month.