Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko has released new data showing that Solana has surpassed Ethereum in annual revenue, highlighting what he views as a structural shift in how value may ultimately be distributed across the crypto market.

According to infographics published by DeFi Development Corp., Solana’s projected chain revenue is expected to reach approximately $1.4 billion, significantly higher than Ethereum’s estimated $522 million. Yakovenko argues that these figures reflect a deeper transformation, as the market increasingly prioritizes real revenue generation over narratives or speculative expectations.

In another post on X, Yakovenko described the past year as “crazy” and questioned whether open, permissionless protocols can sustainably grow and maintain revenue over the long term. He noted that this challenge remains unresolved for much of the crypto industry.

Yakovenko believes the total crypto market capitalization will continue to expand, but emphasized that, over time, value will need to be “split by revenues” rather than driven purely by storytelling or speculation. In this context, he argued that Layer-1 blockchains have only one clear path to long-term relevance.

“L1s’ only shot at this is in the execution layer,” Yakovenko wrote, adding that the most successful networks will be those capable of delivering global, decentralized, low-latency, high-throughput infrastructure with strong censorship resistance.

His comments come amid growing debate over revenue generation and real economic activity across major blockchains, including Ethereum, as investors increasingly shift their focus toward fundamentals rather than surface-level usage metrics.

Expectations for Institutional Adoption

Regarding institutional adoption, a U.S. financier suggested that several large-scale firms, including BlackRock, Blackstone, and JPMorgan, could begin using the Solana network for transactions in the future.