Stablecoin swaps are gaining ground on Solana as memecoin trading loses market share, a shift partly driven by institutional adoption, according to Andrey Didovskiy, CEO of Solana DeFi protocol Seasons.
Memecoins made up 16% of Solana’s spot trading volume in the first half of 2026, down from 40% a year earlier, according to a September 1 report from 21Shares. During the same period, stablecoin swaps grew from 6% to 19%, while general SOL trading increased from 41% to 53%.
Didovskiy called the decline in memecoin activity “a return to reality,”, citing rising interest in real-world assets, macroeconomic uncertainty and the “extractive nature” of memecoins.
He said a lack of accountability and practices that drained users had harmed the sector’s reputation, steering remaining capital toward safer alternatives.
“Recent growth has been definitely lead by institutions,” Didovskiy said in written responses shared with Crypto Briefing on November 13, pointing to the increase in stablecoin issuers and wrappers. He added that retail users and traders also contributed to adoption.
The 21Shares report found that stablecoin assets on Solana rose 51% year over year to $15.7 billion in the first half of 2026, from $10.4 billion a year earlier. The network processed more than $1.9 trillion in stablecoin settlement value during that period.
Memecoin activity has nevertheless shown signs of recovery. According to 21Shares, memecoins had rebounded to about 34% of Solana’s DEX volume by August, indicating that speculative trading remains a substantial part of the network.
Didovskiy said most users who left memecoins are unlikely to return, though a core group will remain and the trend could eventually reverse.
Didovskiy also pointed to tokenization as a potential growth driver. According to 21Shares, Solana’s share of onchain spot trading in tokenized equities rose from 7% in the first half of 2025 to about 97% in the first half of 2026, with trading volume reaching $4.9 billion.
Asked about the progress of tokenization, Didovskiy estimated “2%,”, describing the market as small relative to its potential. He said broader adoption, better tools, education and additional legislation could speed up growth.
Didovskiy named liquidity provision, stablecoin lending and borrowing, and delta-neutral liquid staking strategies as some of Solana’s more sustainable sources of yield. He cited issuer counterparty risk, network reliability and smart contract vulnerabilities as the main concerns.
His protocol, Seasons, distributes gold, Bitcoin and dollar-denominated assets to eligible holders through a mechanism partly funded by a 10% fee on SEAS token trades.
Looking ahead, Didovskiy projected that Solana could quadruple its volume and value, as well as the number of assets hosted on the network, over the next 12 months.
Didovskiy said the metric investors should watch is “prevalence,”, referring to the number of applications integrating Solana and the number of unique individuals using the network.
