A total of $3 billion was generated in fees on Solana memecoin trading generated a record $3 billion in fees from memecoins created and traded on it in 2024. The year saw a rise in the release of memecoins in the crypto space with Solana having a huge number. According to Coingecko, Solana memecoins got the fourth position on the trend report for 2024. Other categories that followed were Base memecoins, and AI memecoins.
A breakdown of the $3 billion fee on Solana showed that the flow was across platforms that support the memecoin ecosystem such as DEXes, Trading BOTs, and MEV infrastructures. According to the report, the top 1% of users were responsible for generating a significant portion of the platform’s total fees, contributing $1.358 billion, which accounts for 79.88% of the total fees of $1.7 billion. These top users paid, on average, $34,700 in fees.
In contrast, users ranked 2-20% (those who are not in the top 1%, but still relatively active) had a much lower average fee of less than $800. Lastly, long-tail users ranked below 20%—a much larger group—contributed even less, with an average fee of less than $100.
Highest spender at $129 million
Looking at the spending habits of traders, the report showed that the largest expenses by a Whale in 2024 on Solana memecoins was $129 million on fees. This fee went to Raydium, a DEX built on Solana for trading different Solana-based tokens.
The fee expenditures on other platforms, like trading bots, Jito, and Pump.fun, are described as “modest” in comparison to Raydium. For example, the fee expenditure for trading bots is $1.43 million, which is relatively modest compared to Raydium’s higher fees.
Similarly, Jito, a platform that enhances Solana’s transaction processing, has a fee expenditure of $6.1399 million, which, though higher than trading bots, is still considered small relative to Raydium’s dominance in the space. Pump.fun, a platform associated with speculative, social-driven trades, has a fee expenditure of $2.3992 million, still much lower than Raydium.
Behaviour of traders on Solana platforms
Raydium was primarily favored by whale traders due to its high liquidity pools, which allow them to execute large orders without significantly impacting the price of the assets. Both whales and regular users also rely heavily on trading bots.
For whales, trading bots were used to streamline and optimize complex strategies, such as arbitrage or market making, across multiple platforms. Regular users also utilize trading bots but typically for simpler strategies, such as following trends or making periodic trades.
Novice traders, on the other hand, were typically drawn to platforms like Pump.fun, which revolve around speculative, hype-driven trading events. Additionally, the simplicity and social nature of platforms like Pump.fun make them appealing to beginners who are eager to engage in the cryptocurrency market, even if the risk of losses is high.
More than half of people who use trading bots only use one platform. Users who use bots have an average trading volume of $93,500, while those who don’t use bots trade more, with an average volume of $678,800. Whale users, who trade in large amounts, prefer the Photon bot platform, while regular users tend to choose Trojan. Novice users, who are still learning, use a mix of platforms, with Trojan, Photon, PepeBoost, and Bullx being the most common ones.
