This week, Solana surpassed Ethereum in several key metrics. However, a recent article on Site X written by pseudonymous researcher Flip Research questions the legitimacy of this surge, attributing much of Solana's activity to bots.
On July 26, #Solana reported 217 transactions per user with 1.3 million active addresses. In comparison, #BTC had less than three transactions per user on 376,300 active addresses. This large discrepancy in transaction volume has sparked controversy in the crypto community, with Flip Research pointing out in an interview the alarming number of maximum extraction values (MEVs) and "soapy" transactions in Solana, suggesting that these numbers may not be as organic as they seem.
Despite the controversy, Solana is showing impressive financial performance. According to Blockworks Research, total fees for the week of July 22 totaled $25 million, beating Ethereum by $21 million; for the week to July 30, Raydium led Solana's trading volume on DEX with $6.078 billion, followed by Orca with $3.4 million. 28 million, followed by Orca with US$1.144 billion and Phoenix with US$1.144 billion.
According to Flip Research's analysis, a significant portion of Solana trading volume comes from bots and inorganic trading activity, with Raydium, a prominent DEX Solana, seeing several liquidity pools generating minimal liquidity but huge trading volumes. For example, the FLOG-SOL pool has a liquidity of only $3, but trading volume over a 24-hour period exceeds $5 million.
An analogous pattern is seen in many of Raydium's low-liquidity pools, with Flip Research revealing that many of these pools are associated with carpet projects. 0.8 million transactions and liquidity of just $48, with 2,845 unique wallets participating in wet bidding, generating $28,000 in commissions.
Flip Research called Solana a "mimcoin casino" that attracts users with high risk tolerance and low price sensitivity.
Thus, the platform has become a hotspot for MEV bots, scammers and insiders who abuse the network.
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