Solana recorded $342.2 million Chain GDP in Q1 2026, while its RWA market cap jumped 43% to $2.01 billion.
Blockchain network Solana reported strong growth in several important sectors during Q1 2026. According to a new Messari report, during the quarter, Solana’s Chain GDP amounted to $342.2 million. Furthermore, the real-world asset market expanded rapidly with the growing interest of investors.
Solana Applications Continue Generating Strong Revenue Growth
According to Messari, Chain GDP is the total application revenue generated on the Solana network. Solana’s application economy remained stable despite the challenging market conditions during the quarter. So, developers and projects still made good money from blockchain activity and demand.
The State of @solana Q1 2026 report is now live
And it's HUGE!
Check out the breakdown thread by @AvgJoesCrypto below https://t.co/wbAcfgpWci
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) May 18, 2026
Pump.fun continued to be Solana’s top revenue-generating app in Q1 2026. The platform’s revenue for the quarter was $124.7 million. Moreover, it has seen its revenue rise by 17% from the previous quarter, with trading activity remaining active throughout the network.
Another major Solana platform, Axiom, reported strong quarterly growth as well. Revenue increased 36% YoY to $42.4 million. Bags saw one of the biggest gains following a 1,347% surge to $11.5 million in January during the artificial intelligence trading craze.
Additionally, Messari noted that Solana’s App Revenue Capture Ratio also saw a slight improvement in the quarter. The ratio rose from 379% to 382%, indicating higher business sustainability for applications. This led to Solana remaining an attractive platform for developers looking for lucrative blockchain ecosystems and scalable infrastructure.
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Solana’s decentralized finance (DeFi) segment, however, had weaker performance in the first quarter. The total value of DeFi locked fell 22% QOQ to $6.16 billion. However, the report said that this was due primarily to SOL’s price drop of 33% rather than reduced activity by users.
Kamino became Solana’s largest DeFi protocol again during the quarter. It had a total value locked of $1.72 billion, just ahead of Jupiter’s $1.69 billion. Besides, Raydium’s $992.5 million in deposits increased by 121% following the integration with Kamino, while PRIME deposits rose by 121%.
Solana RWA Sector Expands as Alpenglow Upgrade Approaches
One of the best-performing real-world asset markets in Q1 2026 was Solana’s real-world asset market. The market cap of the sector grew by 43% to $2.01 billion, according to Messari. This move further solidified Solana’s presence in the emerging blockchain-based asset tokenization space.
BlackRock’s BUIDL fund played a major role in this expansion during the quarter. The asset almost doubled to $525.4 million when Anchorage Digital added custody support. In addition, ONyc rose 101% to $145.4 million and PRIME grew by 124% to $361.2 million.
Messari also noted the performance of Solana’s network revenue for the quarter. The total REV (including transaction fees and validator rewards) amounted to $89.5 million. While REV fell 1% from the previous quarter, Solana was still second to Hyperliquid’s $156 million.
Meanwhile, Solana’s major network upgrade Alpenglow is being prepared by the developers. The update is designed to enhance the transaction processing speed much more on the blockchain. In the current system, transactions take almost 12.8 seconds to finalize on Solana.
The Alpenglow upgrade would reduce transaction finality to just 150 milliseconds. The upgrade will involve the replacement of some of the older systems with newer systems known as Rotor and Votor. As a result, Solana could offer significantly improved blockchain capabilities to developers, traders and regular users around the world.