The dollar value of staked tokens on Solana has briefly surpassed that of Ethereum, leading to bullish sentiments among SOL holders. According to data from Nansen.ai CEO Alex Svaniek, Solana’s staking market cap recently reached $53.96 billion.
This was because of an increase in SOL value, with the token going up to $139 when Ether was still below $1,600. That price change was sufficient to briefly make Solana the biggest staking market cap Proof of Stake (PoS) network, with Ethereum being second at $53.77 billion.
Although Ethereum has regained its lead after ETH gained more than 3% in the last 24 hours to reach $1,646, many in the Solana community consider the brief flip a sign of things to come. Interestingly, one user noted that this is not the first time it has happened, as the same thing occurred in January 2025.
Many users noted that this is a positive sign for the network, with some even describing it as a sign of economic security compared to Ethereum. For this group of investors, most believe SOL will eventually surpass ETH in actual market cap; the flip in staking market cap represents a precursor.
However, it might take a while for SOL to overtake ETH, given how poorly it has also performed this year. SOL is currently down 27.65% year to date and is ranked sixth in market cap with $72 billion. ETH is also down 50.93% but is still far above SOL in market cap, with $198 billion.
Crypto community says ETH and SOL staking fundamentals are different
Despite the seemingly bullish outlook among Solana investors, many believe this metric does not reflect anything, especially considering fundamental differences in network structure. This is because more SOL tokens have been staked than ETH.
According to available data, around 65% of Solana tokens are staked, far above the 28% for ETH. The massive interest in Solana staking is due to the 8.31% yield it offers, which exceeds the 2.92% on Ethereum and beats that of several other PoS networks. SOL stakeholders recently tried reducing the emission rates but failed.
Unsurprisingly, the high staking ratio was one of the major issues identified by critics of the Solana staking, with DeFi researcher Archer MD describing it as a meaningless take.
He said:
“ETH has major DeFi supply sinks as collateral on lending protocols and as a quote asset. It’s an explicit goal to secure Ethereum with the lowest possible staking ratio. High staking ratios are the trademark of useless chains (not Solana’s case).”
Others also noted that Solana has more economic security than Ethereum, noting that the number of validators on Ethereum, 1.07 million, far exceeds the 1,642 validators on Solana.
Comparison of DeFi on Solana and Ethereum
Meanwhile, one area where ETH continues dominating SOL and all other chains is DeFi activity. Despite the network struggles and token floundering, it remains the biggest decentralized network by a large margin.
According to Defillama, Ethereum has a total value locked (TVL) of $47.7 billion and a bridged TVL of $351.73 billion. Although its active addresses are currently less than 350,000, it is home to 1,329 protocols.
By comparison, Solana comes a distant second with just $7.43 billion TVL and $26.16 billion bridged TVL. The network boasts 4.19 million active addresses, a testament to its high user count, but it has only 213 protocols. This is less than what Ethereum L2 networks such as Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon have.
Some stakeholders believe the high staking emission rate is holding Solana DeFi back. Multcoin Capital co-founder Tushar Jain notes that the high risk-free staking rate discourages people from participating in DeFi, where returns are more volatile and lower.
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