Behind the undervalued Solana DeFi: How to break the "ecological internal friction" between high-yield pledges and lending agreements?

After the MEME boom receded, the transaction volume on the Solana chain fell by more than 90%; The 7%-8% staking yield of validator nodes sucks up liquidity like a black hole, and lending protocols struggle under yield suppression. (Synopsis: Franklin Tamburton: Solana DeFi token is seriously undervalued, value return is just around the corner) (Background supplement: Comment" Solana short-term crash, is it the end or a new beginning? Traditional financial giant Franklin Templeton recently released a survey report on the Solana DeFi ecosystem, which pointed out that although Solana's DeFi business far exceeds Ethereum in terms of transaction volume growth and protocol revenue, its related token market value is seriously underestimated. According to the data, the average growth rate of Solana's top DeFi projects in 2024 is as high as 2446% (Ethereum is only 150%), and the market capitalization-to-income ratio is only 4.6 times (Ethereum is 18.1 times), which is like a value depression in comparison. However, when the market turned its attention to Solana DEX's brilliant record of accounting for 53% of the total network trading volume, the "other side" of its ecology was surging, and after the MEME boom receded, the on-chain transaction volume fell by more than 90%; The 7%-8% staking yield of validator nodes sucks up liquidity like a black hole, and lending protocols struggle under yield suppression. Behind this revaluation game triggered by the data paradox, Solana's DeFi ecosystem is at a critical crossroads – will it continue to play the role of "crypto NASDAQ" or risk transforming into an all-powerful financial agreement arena? The upcoming vote on the SIMD-0228 inflation reduction proposal may determine the ultimate direction of this ecological revolution. Solana DEX trading volume has accounted for half of the network In Franklin Templeton's report, the argument is mainly based on Solana's DEX market share. In fact, Solana's DEX trading volume has indeed achieved great results in the past year or so. In January, Solana's DEX volume exceeded Ethereum's DEX volume and all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based DEXs combined, accounting for 53% of the entire network. By comparing the top DeFi projects of Solana and Ethereum, it can be found that the average growth rate of Solana's top five DeFi in 2024 reached 2446%, while the average growth rate of Ethereum was only 150%. In terms of market capitalization to revenue ratio, Ethereum's average ratio is 18.1 times, and Solana's value is 4.6 times. From this perspective, Solana's DeFi project does have a better advantage in terms of revenue and transaction volume. However, whether this shows that Solana's DeFi is underestimated, and whether the next DeFi development can become the main theme, remains to be further understood The ecological characteristics of the two. The Eco-Positioning Choice: Trading Hub or Universal Bank? In the comparison of the DeFi protocols of Ethereum and Solana, it can be seen that almost all of the top five DeFi projects on Ethereum are projects based on staking and lending. On the Solana chain, most of the top five TVL projects are aggregators or DEX. Clearly, trading is the leitmotif on Solana. From this point of view, if both are compared to financial institutions, Ethereum is more like a bank, while Solana is more like a securities exchange. There is a huge difference in the positioning of one main credit business and one main trading business. But for now, both seem to have run into a lot of problems, and Ethereum, which focuses on credit, has problems maintaining the most critical value. Solana, which is mainly engaged in trading business, has clearly ushered in a trend of market liquidity collapse. In the face of an imbalance in ecological positioning, it may be a good choice for Solana to strengthen its credit-related business. However, this transition is a long way to go, and the TVL on the Solana chain has fallen by 40% since January, but this decline is mainly due to the price decline of SOL, and from the number of SOL, the on-chain TVL has not changed much. Since Trump's issuance of personal tokens, DEX trading volume on the Solana chain has been declining. DEX trading volume hit an all-time high of $35 billion on January 18 and had fallen to $2 billion as of March 7. Capital competes for staking income after the MEME spree On the contrary, as the price of SOL has fallen and the MEME coin has cooled, the number of tokens staked on-chain has actually remained on the rise in the near future. Taking Jito, the number one in TVL, as an example, the number of SOLs participating in staking has been climbing, and the total amount of staked has reached 16.47 million, and from the perspective of inflows, it has also been in a state of token inflow recently. Since January 1, 2025, SOL staking net inflows have increased 12% year-over-year. It is clear that this growth in TVL is mainly due to token staking rather than active trading. But this asset growth doesn't seem to have flowed to lending agreements, but to validators' staking earnings. Even though validator staking yields are in decline, they still attract the majority of SOL tokens, TVL. According to Jito, JitoSOL's APY has been in decline since February, along with the number of bundled transactions and priority fee income across the network. As of March 7, JitoSOL's APY fell to 8.41%. However, this is still at least 3 percentage points higher than other categories of staking earnings on Kamino. 8% validator earnings suppress DeFi liquidity, SIMD-0228 proposal intends to untie the knot In fact, the yield of node staking on the Solana chain is basically maintained at about 7%~8%. The benefits are generally higher than those participating in other types of DeFi protocols. This is why a large number of funds on the Solana chain choose to stake funds to various validator nodes instead of investing them in lending protocols like Kamino. Recently, the SIMD-0228 proposal was launched on the Solana chain, which attempts to reduce the annual issuance of SOLs by 80% by dynamically adjusting the inflation rate, and also to promote the flow of funds to other DeFi by reducing the staking yield. (Related: Solana Inflation Revolution: SIMD-0228 Proposal Ignites Community Controversy, 80% Issuance Reduction Hidden "Death Spiral" Risk) According to the simulation results of the new proposal, if the same amount of staking is maintained, the yield of on-chain staking will drop to 1.41%, and the yield will drop by 80%. As a result, the vast majority of funds may be withdrawn from validator staking in favor of other DeFi yield products. But there's actually a logical problem here, which is that the best way to boost the flow of money to DeFi should be to boost other DeFi-like products.