Onchain analytics agency Nansen ranked Solana, BNB Chain, Base, Tron and NEAR Protocol because the busiest blockchains in 2025.
Solana led the pack with 23.01 billion transactions, whereas BNB Chain adopted with 3.89 billion. Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 Base dealt with 3.29 billion for third, as Tron trailed with 3.22 billion and NEAR got here in fifth with 1.89 billion.
At the same time as 2025 was marked by institutional adoption, retail-focused use instances continued to dominate transaction volumes, significantly on blockchains with low charges and excessive throughput.
Solana’s DEX increase and memecoin craze
Solana’s dominance got here on the again of a buying and selling increase that pushed it to the highest of decentralized change (DEX) rankings in early 2025.
CoinGecko reported that Solana DEX buying and selling dominated 40% of the business’s market share by recording $293.7 billion within the first quarter of 2025. It was pushed partly by a memecoin frenzy round superstar and political tokens like $TRUMP, a Solana-based token launched on Jan. 18 tied to US President Donald Trump.
DefiLlama knowledge confirmed that Solana remained among the many high chains by DEX quantity all year long, with month-to-month volumes round or above the $100 billion mark.
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BNB Chain’s roughly 3.89 billion transactions, per Nansen, coincided with the rise of its personal memecoin scene.
Base ranked third by 2025 transaction depend because it leveraged direct distribution from Coinbase’s consumer base. A 2026 outlook by Messari researcher AJC stated that Base’s protocol income grew by about 30 occasions in 2025, capturing 62% of whole L2 income. The identical analysis famous that Base’s ecosystem now spans DEXs, AI‑linked apps and prediction platforms.
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Tron and NEAR spherical out the highest 5
Tron’s 3.22 billion transactions mirrored its function as a spine for the stablecoin financial system. In June 2025, TRON DAO stated that greater than half of circulating USDt (USDT) is issued on its blockchain. Its stablecoin provide grew about 40% yr‑to‑date with every day switch volumes within the tens of billions of {dollars}.
NEAR Protocol rounded out the highest 5, with 1.89 billion transactions in 2025 in line with Nansen’s rating.
NEAR reported about 46 million customers in Could, inserting it alongside Solana and Tron in exercise metrics. Past numbers, a key a part of NEAR’s 2025 story was its function within the privateness narrative by way of Zcash (ZEC), whose comeback was pushed partly by the Electrical Coin Firm’s Zashi pockets integrating with NEAR’s Intents system. It allowed customers to maneuver out and in of ZEC’s shielded pool with out going via centralized exchanges.
This integration helped push Zcash’s shielded provide to report ranges and drove a spike in exercise on NEAR Intents, together with a day with over $17 million in Zcash-related quantity.
