Solana just hit a huge milestone! On December 18, 2024, it recorded a whopping 66.9 million daily transactions thanks to the launch of the Pudgy Penguins NFT project’s token, PENGU.
This number is impressive. In fact, it’s more than all the activity from other major blockchains combined, according to data from Artemis.
Solana didn’t just shine in transaction counts. It also led the pack in daily trading volume on decentralized exchanges and had the highest number of active addresses. However, it did fall behind Base, Ethereum, and Tron when it came to stablecoin transfers.
The ongoing crypto bull run, which kicked off in early 2024, has made Solana a go-to choice for retail investors. Many are looking to cash in on opportunities with memecoins, NFTs, and other smaller tokens. On the day of the PENGU launch, fans of Pudgy Penguins and related tokens eagerly joined the airdrop. It started at 8:00 AM ET, and within the first hour, there were over 100,000 claims and more than 4.7 million website views.
PENGU launched with a market cap of $2.3 billion, but it has since dropped to about $2 billion, according to Coingecko.
On the same day, Solana’s SOL token increased by 3.2%, reaching $229, riding the wave of Bitcoin’s rise. However, it faced some challenges in maintaining that momentum and slipped back to $217 as investors showed caution ahead of the Federal Reserve's rate decision.