Solana on Its Way to Surpassing Ethereum, Top VC Says

Alliance DAO’s Qiao Wang, seasoned cryptocurrency analyst and co-founder of Messari, shared the statistics of founders applying for funding to his fund in 2022-2025. Ethereum (ETH) is losing its dominance for 30 months in a row — and the community is surprised by the names of some other top popular blockchains.

“Momentum favors Solana”: Crucial metric highlighted by Qiao Wang

When it comes to the number of projects asking for funding in Alliance DAO, Solana-based and Ethereum-based protocols are competing nose-to-nose in 2025. At the same time, Solana’s (SOL) metric is getting traction and Ethereum (ETH) might soon lose its supremacy.

latest data of startups applying to alliance

solana and ethereum r now neck n neck. but momentum favors solana and it looks like soon solana will become the largest ecosystem of founders for the first time pic.twitter.com/2ina3oJz9J

— qw (@QwQiao) May 1, 2025

Momentum favors Solana (SOL), Qiao Wang says, and the network might very soon become the largest chain for new founders. As per the chart shared by the analyst, in H1, 2025, Ethereum’s (ETH) share in the metric dropped below 50% for the first time in history.

Solana (SOL) has been increasing its share since late 2022. Post-FTX collapse, Solana (SOL) managed to get rid of the associations with SBF-related products.

Targeted by massive criticism, Polkadot (DOT) surprisingly remains in the top 10 by the number of projects applying for funding.

Filecoin (FIL), Cosmos (ATOM), BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Bitcoin (BTC), Avalanche (AVAX), Sui (SUI) and Aptos (APT) are also in the elite club.

Ethereum (ETH) still controls over half of DeFi TVL, Solana (SOL) sits at 7.77%

At the same time, for some metrics, Ethereum (ETH) remains the dominant blockchain amid all programmable networks.

For instance, as per the DefiLlama tracker, Ethereum’s (ETH) protocols are responsible for over 51.2% of global DeFi TVL. Out of $102 billion in equivalent, the oldest smart contracts network still covers over $52 billion.

Solana’s TVL is sitting at mediocre 7.77%. Meanwhile, by the number of active addresses, Ethereum (ETH) is lagging behind Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), and is ready to slip below BNB Smart Chain (BSC).