Solana’s monthly active address count has surged past 100 million, setting a new all-time high for the network, according to data from blockchain platform Artemis Terminal.
This marks a significant increase from the 509,000 monthly active addresses recorded by Artemis at the start of 2024.
However, supporting data suggests that most active wallets on Solana do not hold any Solana (SOL).
Skeptics attribute this rapid growth to bots artificially inflating the metrics, a critique often associated with Solana’s success.
Solana data provider Hello Moon reported that over the past month, more than 86 million users had 0 SOL in their wallets.
Around 15.5 million users held less than 1 SOL, and about 1.5 million users held less than 10 SOL.
Despite the rise in active users, most of these accounts have zero balances, raising questions about the legitimacy of the growth.
Justin d’Anethan, head of APAC business development at market maker Keyrock, commented, “Most Solana addresses have a lifetime value of sub-$10, which hints at something not entirely legitimate or organic, despite the ecosystem being indeed very active and the token doing very well.”
Dan Hughes, founder of decentralized finance platform Radix DLT, suggested that interactions with centralized exchanges (CEX) or DeFi applications might explain the large number of zero-balance active wallets.
He explained that exchanges often generate proxy addresses, moving tokens to a hot wallet once they are received.
Solana’s increase in active wallets also aligns with a recovery in the issuance of new tokens on the network.
Since September 26, at least 17,000 new tokens have been created daily on Solana, according to Solscan data.
On October 8, the network saw over 10 million new accounts, more than double the number created the previous day.
However, debates persist over the legitimacy of Solana’s metrics.
Critics argue that the network may be flooded with bots that artificially inflate activity by performing numerous small transactions between proxy addresses.
“It’s very easy and cheap on Solana to make it appear like there are many active users when there aren’t,” Hughes said.
