SOL Weekly Data Report — August 10–16, 2026

2026-08-18 · Weekly Data Report · SolDataLab Research Desk

Our weekly quantitative pulse of the Solana network, covering the seven days through Sunday, August 16, 2026. Every figure below is compared against the prior week, with day-by-day detail and a trailing four-week view at the end. All data is cross-checked against Solscan, SolanaFM, DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko; discrepancies between sources under 1% are normal.

Executive summary

A clean, broad-based up week. SOL rose 4.8%, network activity hit a record, TVL recovered to $9.4B, USDC supply climbed back above $9B, and fee markets tightened meaningfully — all without a single network incident. The only true anomaly was the scale of the transaction record, and the network absorbed it without congestion.

1. Market snapshot

SOL delivered its best relative week in over a month. The -10.3% in 24-hour volume is a single-day artifact — compare Sunday to Sunday — while seven-day volume was actually slightly up. Funding stayed mildly positive, indicating balanced positioning rather than a crowded rally.

2. Network activity

Activity accelerated across the board. The headline is the 58M-transaction day — an all-time record absorbed without congestion, which tells us capacity is not the constraint right now. New-address growth (+10%) outpacing active-address growth (+9.1%) suggests real onboarding rather than existing users trading more.

Day-by-day transaction path

The path matters more than the peak: activity stepped up through the week rather than spiking once. The Saturday-to-Sunday pattern — a record 58M day with a lower address count — is characteristic of bot and script-heavy launchpad activity, which is worth remembering when reading the fee data below. Daily active addresses are counted per day and therefore overlap across days; the 7-day active-address metric is de-duplicated.

3. DeFi

TVL recovered to $9.4B, back to mid-June levels. DEX volume led the rally (+11.3%), and restaking was the fastest-moving corner at +12%. Note that TVL can move with price alone; the volume numbers confirm this week's growth was activity-led, not just mark-to-market.

How much of the TVL move is price?

SOL rose 4.8% during the week. If TVL had only moved with price, it would have grown roughly 4.8%; it grew 5.6%. The extra ~0.8 points — about $70M — is net new deposits. Modest, but real: users are adding capital, not just watching their SOL-denominated positions mark up.

4. Stablecoins

USDC crossing $9.1B is the important number: stablecoin growth driven by settlement and payments — not just CEX deposits — is the most durable kind. We flagged this corridor story in the news review; the data confirms it is showing up on-chain.

5. Fees and staking

Fee markets were the loudest signal of the week: MEV tips jumped 40% and average priority fees rose 25%, reflecting the spike in competing transactions. Staking stayed steady — 65.1% of supply, APY drifting down 0.1 pp, which is normal noise, not a trend.

Day-by-day fee pressure

The Sunday observation is the most informative of the week: the network processed its busiest day ever at the week's lowest average priority fee. That is congestion without premium — exactly what Solana's architecture is supposed to deliver, and the reason the fee-market narrative remains 'usage is fine, capacity is fine.'

What the week tells us

Fastest-growing metrics

1. Jito MEV tips: +40% — congestion-driven validator income, the biggest single mover.
2. Average priority fee: +25% — users paying more to land transactions in busy windows.
3. Peak daily non-vote transactions: +18.4% — the record day.
4. Network fees: +16.7% — base fees plus priority fees, in SOL terms (Jito tips are reported separately as validator MEV income).
5. DEX volume: +11.3% — trading activity normalizing after a quiet July.

Declining or flat

• 24h trading volume (-10.3%) — a single-day comparison artifact; 7d volume was up.
• Staking APY (-0.1 pp) — structural drift as fee distribution normalizes, not a concern.

Anomalies and risks

No outages, no fee spikes, no stablecoin de-pegs — the week was operationally boring in the best way. The one thing worth flagging: a 58M-transaction day sits at the upper edge of the network's normal operating range. It was handled comfortably, but it also means 'normal' is moving — worth watching as the new baseline.

Trailing 4-week view

Every major metric has compounded for three straight weeks. Price, activity, TVL and stablecoin supply are all higher than four weeks ago, and the acceleration is broadening — last week activity led, this week fees joined in. Synchronous, broad-based recovery is a healthier signal than a single-asset spike.

Reading the slope

• Price: $164.2 → $187.4 (+14.1% over four weeks), with each weekly close above the last.
• USDC supply: +$0.9B over the month — the fastest four-week gain of 2026 so far.
• DEX volume: +29% over four weeks, versus +12% over the prior four — the slope is steepening.
• Non-vote txs: +10.7% over four weeks, steady rather than accelerating — activity is broadening, not spiking.

Fee math: what a transfer actually costs

That is roughly one to two cents per transaction. Compare that to congested alternative chains during spikes, where a simple transfer can cost double-digit cents or more. Fee efficiency remains Solana's structural advantage for high-frequency settlement, and it is the reason we report these numbers every week rather than just prices.

Indicator definitions and methodology

• Non-vote transactions: user and application transactions, excluding validator consensus votes (which dominate raw Solana transaction counts).
• Active addresses: unique addresses with at least one successful transaction in the period.
• Network fees: base fees + priority fees, in SOL, converted at the week's average price. Jito tips are reported separately as validator MEV income.
• Staking rate: staked SOL divided by total circulating supply.
• Average priority fee: the volume-weighted average of per-transaction priority fees across the week.
• Compute units (CU): the metered execution cost of a transaction; Solana caps CU per block, which is the real throughput constraint.
• Restaking TVL: value locked in Kamino and Sanctum restaking vaults, cross-checked against DefiLlama.
• Data reconciliation: all figures are pulled from Solscan, SolanaFM, Solana Beach, DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko; where sources disagree by more than 1%, the discrepancy is flagged rather than averaged away.

Risk watch

• Record-day regression: if the 58M day becomes the new normal, watch whether priority fees stay low — sustained 55M+ days with rising fees would flip the capacity story.
• Meme-cycle cooling: launchpad-driven activity can reverse as fast as it arrived; the leading indicator is Jito tips, which would fall before transaction counts do.
• Stablecoin reversal: two consecutive weeks of declining USDC supply would break the strongest fundamental story on the chain.
• Restaking outflow: early incentive-seeking deposits often rotate out; a sudden drawdown in Kamino/Sanctum vaults would look like risk-off, not a failure of the sector.
• ETF disappointment: any formal SEC delay would most directly hit price, with on-chain metrics lagging by days.

Bottom line

A clean, broad-based up week with real activity behind it: usage, fees and stablecoins moved together, the network absorbed a record day without incident, and price followed. The main risk to watch is whether meme-driven activity — the biggest contributor to fee growth — cools as fast as it arrived, which would show up first in priority fees and MEV tips.

Tags: NetworkDeFiStablecoinPriority FeesStaking