Solana DeFi Overview
TVL fell 8.5% this week to $5.49B.
But most of the decline was driven by SOL price weakness rather than capital leaving the ecosystem. Meanwhile, stablecoin liquidity hit near ATHs, RWAs stayed stable, and institutional flows kept building.
Price vs. Capital
Dollar TVL can be misleading during volatile weeks.
SOL fell around 3.3% WoW, which mechanically pushed TVL lower from ~$6B to $5.49B. Once adjusted for price, the actual capital outflow was much smaller than the headline numbers suggest.
Snapshot
TVL (USD)
$5.49B
↓ mostly SOL price weakness
Stablecoin Supply
$14.7B
↑ close to all-time highs
RWA TVL
$2.5B+
→ Held steady
Native SOL TVL
~66M SOL
→ Near historic highs
Jito MEV Fees
$103M
↑ In one month
ETF Inflows (cumul.)
~$1.1B
↑ Still growing
Market Overview
| Metric | Week 19 | Week 20 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| TVL (USD) | ≈ $6.0B | $5.49B | –8.5% |
| TVL (SOL) | ≈ 69.8M SOL | ≈ 66M SOL | –5.5% |
| Stablecoin Supply | ≈ $13B | $14.7B | +13.1% |
| USDC Dominance | 75% | 50.5% | Big drop |
| RWA TVL | ≈ $2.5B | >$2.5B | Stable |
| SOL Price | ≈ $86 | ≈ $83.2 | –3.3% |
Macro Metrics: Week 19 vs Week 20
USD billions: TVL, Stablecoin Supply, RWA
TVL Attribution
Total TVL declined by roughly $511M.
- ~$321M came from SOL price depreciation
- ~$190M came from actual repositioning
So roughly two-thirds of the decline came from valuation effects rather than users leaving Solana.
$511M TVL Decline: Attribution
Price effect vs net rotation (USD millions), W19 to W20
Native SOL TVL
Despite weaker USD TVL, native participation stayed strong.
Solana still has around 66M SOL locked on-chain, versus a peak near 80M earlier this year.
SOL-Denominated vs USD TVL, Indexed (W17 = 100)
Divergence shows how much of the USD decline is pure price compression
Stablecoin Rotation
This was the biggest shift of the week.
Stablecoin supply jumped from ~$13B to ~$14.7B as capital rotated into:
- stablecoin vaults
- lower-risk yield products
- RWAs
- defensive carry trades
The capital largely stayed on-chain; it simply rotated into safer positioning.
Week 19: Stablecoin Split
Total ≈ $13.0B
Week 20: Stablecoin Split
Total = $14.70B
USDC Dominance
USDC dominance fell sharply from 75% to 50.5%.
Following the Drift exploit, liquidity diversified quickly into PYUSD, USDT, and other stablecoins. Non-USDC stablecoins gained over $4B in market share, while USDC balances dropped by ~$2.33B.
RWA on Solana
RWA liquidity remained stable despite broader DeFi weakness.
That matters because institutional capital typically moves more slowly and remains stickier than retail farming capital, making RWAs one of the more structural growth areas in Solana DeFi.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total RWA TVL | $2.5B+ |
| RWA Holders | 182k+ |
| RWA Lending Deposits | $1.2B+ |
| Hastra PRIME | $322M |
| BlackRock BUIDL | $321M |
ETF Flow Picture
Spot SOL ETFs are now approaching $1.1B in cumulative inflows, with institutional investors representing a large share of demand.
Recent regulatory clarity around SOL’s commodity classification also helped remove a key barrier for traditional allocators.
SOL Spot ETF: Cumulative Inflows
USD millions, $1B crossed by mid-March 2026
Network Health
Application-layer revenue is now roughly 3.5x larger than base-layer revenue, showing that usage continues growing beyond simple L1 speculation.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Daily Active Wallets | 3.2M |
| Annualized DEX Volume | $1.4T |
| Non-Vote Transactions | 33B |
| Protocol Revenue | $1.4B |
| App vs Base Revenue | 3.5× |
Jito
Jito continues to separate itself from the rest of the ecosystem. The protocol generated more than $103M in MEV fees in a single month.
Final Take
The market actually behaved in a surprisingly mature way.
Speculative capital rotated out. Stablecoins rotated in. RWAs stayed sticky. Institutional flows kept building. And native SOL participation remained historically strong.
P0 Overview
The old campaign-driven farming meta is no longer dominant. Instead, a more mature market is forming: stablecoin spreads, cheaper borrow markets, and more efficient leverage.
The data below covers Week 20 (May 18–24, 2026), compared with Week 19 (May 11–17, 2026).
Overview
Two things defined the entire week.
First, $YIELD emissions collapsed, they fell by 83% in one week.
Second, cgntSOL appeared with a 0.60% borrow rate. This gave users access to a much cheaper borrowing asset. Which opened a new group of leveraged LST strategies.
Snapshot
YIELD Effective Rate
10.71%
↓ from 29.26% W19
YIELD Emissions
3.53%
↓ from 21.93% W19
cgntSOL Borrow
0.60%
★ New low-cost borrow asset
USDS Deposit
17.51%
↑ Platform high
USDC Deposit
6.91%
↓ Back to normal levels
USDT Deposit
8.09%
↓ Falling toward baseline
BTC Short and SOL Short are now the main large-capacity strategies still offering strong APY.
Rate Snapshot
The whole week can be explained by two forces: $YIELD rewards disappeared faster than expected, and cgntSOL made borrowing much cheaper. Most of the market shifts this week were driven by those two developments.
| Asset / Strategy | Week 19 | Week 20 | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| YIELD effective rate | 29.26% | 10.71% | Huge drop |
| YIELD emissions | 21.93% | 3.53% | Rewards dried up |
| cgntSOL borrow | N/A | 0.60% | New ultra-cheap borrow asset |
| USDS deposit | 14.84% | 17.51% | New platform high |
| USDC deposit | 14.03% | 6.91% | Collapsed |
| USDT deposit | 15.56% | 8.09% | Falling toward baseline |
| SOL borrow | 5.66% | 5.18% | Slightly cheaper |
Key Rate Changes: Week 19 vs Week 20
Stablecoin deposit rates + campaign effective rates (%)
$YIELD Collapse
$YIELD emissions collapsed fast.
Week 19 emissions were 21.93%. One week later, they dropped to 3.53%, pulling effective rates down from 29.26% to 10.71%.
As rewards faded, leveraged $YIELD strategies got hit and TVL rotated elsewhere.
Campaign Effective Rate Decay: W18 to W21 (estimated)
YIELD and corvusSOL effective rates (%). W21 = estimate based on current decay velocity.
Platform Restructure
The strategy count barely changed (30 → 31), but the platform rotated heavily underneath.
12 strategies disappeared, 13 new ones launched. Campaign-driven and stablecoin arbitrage strategies were gradually replaced by USDS trades and the new cgntSOL LST tier.
Week 19: Strategy Type Mix
30 total strategies
Week 20: Strategy Type Mix
31 total strategies
USDS
USDS became the highest-paying stablecoin on the platform at 17.51% deposit APY.
That pushed some USDS-funded strategies above 50% APY, but most only support a few thousand dollars of capacity.
cgntSOL Tier
cgntSOL launched with a 0.60% borrow rate versus 5.18% for SOL.
Cheap leverage made LST carry trades much more attractive:
- 6% LST → ~13% leveraged APY
- bbSOL at 8.91% → ~20% APY
The main risk is borrow utilization. If caps fill, rates rise and spreads compress.
cgntSOL LST Emode: APY by Lend Asset
All at 2.36x leverage vs cgntSOL 0.60% borrow. $192k cap per strategy.
Strategy Leaderboard
The highest APYs were mostly small-capacity USDS trades.
The most scalable opportunities remained in larger strategies like BTC Short and SOL Short.
| Strategy | APY | Capacity |
|---|---|---|
| BTC Short (USDT/zBTC 7.67x) | 61.61% | $10.8M |
| ETH Short (USDS/ETH 1.95x) | 31.16% | $7.0M |
| SOL Short (USDC/cgntSOL 4.33x) | 27.94% | $43.9M |
These three strategies represent most of the serious capacity on the platform.
Full APY Ranking: Week 20 (all 31 strategies)
Colored by strategy type. Negative APY shown for ETH Long.
Deployable Capital by Strategy Type: Week 20
Total tracked capacity ~$68M. Directional strategies dominate deployable capital.
Winners & Losers
Biggest losers:
- $YIELD/SOL: 187.44% → 47.77%
- corvusSOL/SOL: 81.64% → 41.50%
Biggest winners:
- USDS-funded strategies
- cgntSOL LST leverage trades
USDS trades offered higher APYs, while cgntSOL trades presented a cleaner long-term structure.
WoW APY Changes: Selected Strategies (Δ percentage points)
Light purple = gained, deep purple = lost. YIELD/SOL capped at −100pp for readability (actual −139.67pp).
What’s Next
Exit Triggers
Things to watch
- ◆Will USDS follow the 1-week spike pattern and collapse?
- ◆Can YIELD emissions stabilize or will they hit 0%?
- ◆cgntSOL borrow rate: will it rise as borrow caps fill?
- ◆Will P0 launch a new campaign to replace YIELD?
- ◆USDT trajectory: approaching 6–7% structural baseline
Exit triggers
- ▲USDS-funded strategies: USDS deposit below 10%
- ▲YIELD/SOL: YIELD effective below 8%
- ▲BTC Short: USDT deposit below 6%
- ▲cgntSOL emode: cgntSOL borrow above 2%
- ▲SOL Short: cgntSOL borrow above 3%
Final Take
Week 20 felt like a transitional period for the market.
Campaign APYs cooled off, while capital started moving toward cleaner spreads and cheaper leverage.
The market is becoming less dependent on emissions and increasingly focused on capital efficiency.