Solana DEXs Log 208 Million Weekly Trades, Overtaking NYSE in Trade Count for First Time

In the week of September 14–20, SOL Solana's decentralized exchanges processed 208 million trades, according to flipthe.market, a tracker built on Blockworks Research data. The NYSE executed 189 million trades in the same period. It is the first time a blockchain network has exceeded a major traditional stock exchange in weekly trade count.

Vibhu Norby, who built and maintains flipthe.market, published the comparison on September 21: "Last week, a blockchain surpassed NYSE in weekly trades for the first time ever. Solana: 208 million trades. NYSE: 189 million trades. Internet capital markets have arrived."

The milestone does not mean Solana has replaced NYSE. Per flipthe.market, NASDAQ processed roughly 313 million trades over the same stretch, putting Solana at approximately 53% of NASDAQ's pace. NYSE is the smaller of the two major U.S. equity markets by trade count, which makes it the more accessible benchmark, though still a meaningful one to cross.

What the Trade Count Comparison Actually Measures

The two numbers track different activities on different infrastructure, and that context matters.

On flipthe.market, a Solana "trade" is a completed swap on a fee-paying spot DEX pool. An NYSE "trade" is an executed equity order processed during the regular 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET session. The underlying assets, the settlement mechanics, and the participant bases differ significantly. NYSE trades settle a defined universe of listed equities through regulated brokerages; Solana trades span memecoins, stablecoin pairs, tokenized equities, DeFi pairs, and automated market-maker routes.

The comparison is valid for what it measures: raw execution volume per week. Notional dollar value per trade skews far higher on NYSE, where a single equity block can represent millions of dollars, versus a typical Solana memecoin swap measured in dollars or cents. The trade count figure shows that Solana's on-chain infrastructure now clears more individual transaction events in a week than one of the world's oldest stock exchanges.

What's Driving the Count: Memecoins, Tokenized Equities, and Stablecoin Pairs

The count comes from several distinct layers of Solana activity compounding at once.

Memecoin and small-cap token launches account for the majority of the raw trade count. Solana Compass DEX analytics show that Pump.fun alone generated approximately 118 million trades during the week, roughly 57% of the total, as new token deployments, meme cycles, and automated bot activity on the platform produced a high cadence of small, rapid swaps. On Raydium RAY$1.83+10.2% Raydium and Jupiter JUP$0.298+6.1% Jupiter, additional memecoin and long-tail routing brought the aggregate higher. Low fees and rapid on-chain clearing make it economical to execute many small transactions where a single larger trade would serve on a traditional venue, which raises Solana's count relative to exchanges optimized for larger lot sizes.

Tokenized equity trading has added a structurally new layer. As reported on September 13, Solana tokenized stocks exceeded the combined NYSE and NASDAQ dollar volume on September 12, with Raydium routing more than 90% of that settlement. Those individual stock swaps, many executed after U.S. market hours, contribute directly to the weekly trade count. The tokenized equity holder base on Solana has grown to over 727,000.

Stablecoin pair swaps and broader DeFi routing complete the count. Solana's DeFi TVL has been running between $5.72 billion and $6.2 billion through September, per Crypto Briefing. The weekly DEX volume for the week ending mid-September reached $17.3 billion.

The Structural Edge: 24/7 Markets

NYSE operates roughly 250 days per year during a 6.5-hour window. Solana runs continuously. In the September 13 data on tokenized equity trading, 63% of all cumulative tokenized-equity trades on Solana settled outside U.S. market hours. That after-hours volume, from participants in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, has no NYSE equivalent; those sessions simply do not exist for traditional listed equities.

This difference is one of the central arguments behind the internet capital markets framing Solana has been advancing since the wave of tokenized equity launches in 2026: that 24/7, permissionless settlement on a global network opens access to assets for participants who cannot easily access U.S. brokerage accounts or trade during Eastern Time business hours.

NASDAQ Remains the More Distant Target

The NYSE comparison landed first because NYSE's trade count is currently within range. Solana at 208 million versus NASDAQ's roughly 313 million represents a gap that a sustained increase in tokenized equity activity, memecoin cycles, or new DeFi protocols could narrow, though it has not closed yet.

Flipthe.market, which tracks the comparison in real time using Blockworks Research data, now frames its core question as when Solana will surpass NASDAQ, having implicitly treated the NYSE milestone as a waypoint rather than a destination. The tracker defines Solana trades as executed swaps on fee-paying spot DEX pools, keeping the comparison consistent with the most liquid on-chain activity rather than all Solana transactions.

The week of September 14–20 is the first confirmed crossing. Whether it holds as a sustained baseline rather than a one-week spike will depend on whether the activity mix of tokenized equities, memecoin launches, and DeFi routing continues at the pace that produced it.