On 20 April 2025, Solana (SOL) temporarily surpassed Ethereum (ETH) in total staking market capitalization of $53.9 billion on an 8.31% annualized rate, driven by buoyant price appreciation compared to ETH. This episode is a telling reversal of crypography staking conditions which testifies to increased confidence of investors in Solana.
Solana's increased staking reward has brought a lot of investment, but the success has been criticized by analysts. Fears have been expressed that the high staking rate (65% of Solana's market cap) will restrict token usability and lower liquidity for DeFi use compared to Ethereum.
In spite of Solana's staking achievement, Ethereum is still the pioneer in DeFi statistics like Total Value Locked (TVL) and network decentralization. Ethereum's increased number of validators and greater DeFi liquidity warrant its status as the topmost popular smart contract platform
