Solana’s public attack on Starknet exposes how billions in “mercenary” volume are artificially pumping network valuations right now

Solana’s verified X account fired a shot on Jan. 14: “Starknet has 8 daily active users, 10 daily transactions, and still somehow has a 1b MC and 15b FDV[…] Send it straight to 0.”

The data used in the ‘sh*tpost’ appears to trace back to an April 2024 snapshot, as the FDV figure was wrong. Current CryptoSlate data shows Starknet’s fully diluted valuation around $900 million, not $15 billion.

While overshooting the valuation is one thing, the fact that Solana’s official account called for users to “send [Starknet] straight to 0” really highlights where the industry is in 2026. A project that is looking for serious institutional money to move on chain is actively calling for the downfall of a competitor chain (albeit through an ‘intern’ controlled social media account).

Still, the broader question holds: how do you measure the gap between what a network is worth and what it actually does?

Valuation isn’t usage, but some networks price like they have both.

The real challenge lies in separating what’s easy to inflate, such as notional perpetual futures volume and address activity, from what’s harder to fake: fee pressure measured through REV (Real Economic Value), which combines chain fees and MEV tips that users actually pay for execution priority.

The metric stack that matters

Market cap is divided by circulating supply, while FDV is divided by total supply.

Activity metrics are split into spot DEX volume measuring on-chain swaps and perpetual futures volume, which DefiLlama defines as notional traded volume, including leverage.

A trader opening a $100,000 position with a $10,000 margin counts the full $100,000 toward volume, making perp numbers large by design and vulnerable to inflation through zero-fee trading or points programs that reward activity regardless of genuine demand.

REV cuts through this noise by measuring what users actually pay to use a chain.

DefiLlama defines it as chain fees plus MEV tips. High volume with low REV reveals notional churn driven by incentives rather than organic economic activity.

Using mid-January 2026 data, we pulled 30-day spot DEX volume and 30-day perp volume for the top 50 blockchain infrastructures ranked by market cap on CoinGecko.

Solana shows $121.8 billion in spot and $32.4 billion in perps, totaling $154.2 billion in combined trading activity against an FDV of $90.7 billion for a ratio of 0.59.

The network’s speculative value sits around half of one month’s trading activity, and its volume is distributed across dozens of DEXs, including Jupiter, Raydium, and Orca, while posting daily REV consistently above $1 million, with millions of active addresses processing millions of transactions.

Arbitrum shows $15 billion in spot and $37.8 billion in perps, totaling $52.8 billion against an FDV of $2.2 billion for a ratio of 0.04.

That looks compelling until you check concentration: Variational, a single perpetual exchange, accounts for $24.9 billion of that perp volume, representing roughly 66% of the chain’s perpetual trading.

Variational launched a points program on Dec. 17, with documentation stating that the VAR token isn’t live yet and that approximately 50% of the supply is earmarked for community distribution.

That’s textbook “mercenary volume,” where traders stack points ahead of a token launch and may reassess once rewards end, meaning Arbitrum’s monthly volume could drop by $20 billion if Variational’s activity normalizes post-airdrop. However, its spot DEX volume and $3 billion TVL would remain intact.

Starknet tells an even sharper story with $208 million in spot but $36.4 billion in perps, totaling $36.6 billion against an FDV of $900 million for a ratio of 0.025.

Extended, a single perpetual exchange, accounts for essentially all of Starknet’s perp volume in near-total dominance while running an ongoing points program launched in April 2025 with weekly distributions, referral incentives, and fee discounts tied to volume.

The real signal comes from Starknet’s 30-day chain fees sitting around $186,293 according to DefiLlama, a tiny figure relative to $36.4 billion in monthly notional perp volume that reveals high notional activity without corresponding fee pressure driven by incentives rather than genuine economic demand.

Optimism shows $8.2 billion in spot and $6.5 billion in perps, totaling $14.7 billion, against an FDV of $8 billion, for a ratio of 0.54, with volume distributed across multiple venues rather than concentrated in single incentivized protocols.

Both Optimism and Arbitrum post meaningful daily REV typically above $500,000 and often exceeding $1 million during high-activity periods, demonstrating that users pay for blockspace and execution priority beyond just farming points.

Avalanche shows $4.1 billion in spot with minimal perps against an FDV of $12 billion for a ratio around 3x. In comparison, Polkadot shows a combined market cap of under $1 billion against an FDV of around $10 billion, for a ratio above 10x.

Additionally, Algorand carries an FDV near $8 billion, with minimal activity, resulting in ratios in the double digits, as networks are priced for ecosystems that haven’t scaled or have seen usage migrate elsewhere.

Low ratios signal durability questions, not guarantees

A low FDV-to-volume ratio doesn’t automatically signal undervaluation or buying opportunity but rather poses a durability question: either valuation rises because volume proves sticky and monetizable, or volume mean-reverts when incentives fade and mercenary capital moves on.

The answer depends on whether the activity is organic or incentive-driven and whether it’s concentrated or distributed across multiple venues and use cases.

Arbitrum’s 0.04 ratio changes fundamentally if over 60% of its perp volume tied to a pre-token points program disappears after Variational’s airdrop. However, this wouldn’t necessarily damage its broader ecosystem, given substantial spot DEX volume and TVL exceeding $3 billion.

Starknet’s 0.025 ratio faces an even sharper test given Extended’s complete dominance and explicit farming incentives with weekly distributions.

Whether volume persists after the points season ends will determine if the ratio reflects genuine opportunity or a temporary distortion that collapses when incentives stop flowing, especially given its market cap of around $454 million with only 50.43% of supply unlocked.

Solana’s 0.59 ratio sits higher but reflects volume distributed across dozens of venues, with daily REV consistently exceeding that of most layer-2 blockchains, indicating sustained organic demand across multiple product categories rather than dependence on any single incentivized protocol.

REV provides the clearest signal for separating real demand from churn. If a chain posts $50 billion in monthly perp volume but collects $10,000 in daily fees, the volume drives point accumulation rather than economic demand. In contrast, networks that monetize throughput show it in fee data that scales with activity levels.

Concentration serves as a key forward indicator because when more than 50% of a chain’s volume ties to a single venue, that’s a single protocol’s cycle rather than broad ecosystem adoption.

When that protocol’s incentives end, or users migrate to better execution elsewhere, volume metrics compress rapidly. Points programs create short-term surges that distort metrics for months until the real test arrives after the token launch, when farmers reassess execution quality and fee structure without additional incentives.

Solana shows healthier patterns with volume distributed across major DEXs and perp activity split between multiple venues, suggesting genuine product-market fit.

Cosmos (ATOM) presents a structural edge case with FDV near $4 billion, but ecosystem activity is happening on app-chains like Osmosis and dYdX rather than the hub itself.

This means that low DEX and perp volume don’t capture actual utility centered on interchain communication and shared security infrastructure, where token value derives from coordination rather than direct trading throughput.

Solana’s tweet was theater with demonstrably wrong numbers, but the question it raised about when valuation reflects what networks do versus what they might do remains worth examining systematically.

DEX volume, perp volume, REV, and venue concentration provide quantifiable signals that separate networks priced for current traffic from those priced for traffic they’re waiting on or for traffic that might disappear entirely when points stop flowing.