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Research • July 31, 2026

Charts of the Week: Solana Sweeteners

Incentives matter. Just look at what's happening onchain.

This article originally appeared in Galaxy Research's weekly newsletter. Subscribe to get timely insights delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.

Solana perpetuals exchange Phoenix Trade recorded back-to-back record days for volume and open interest after announcing a rewards program that will pay traders $420,000 in USDC over the coming month.

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The lesson is simple: incentives matter, not least of all on Solana, whose OI share of the perps market remained small in Q2 (despite a volume surge), as the Drift hack and the end of Jupiter’s annual airdrop removed enticements for trading. Even with the new incentives campaign, Phoenix reported only ~1,300 traders using the platform. That’s peanuts compared to leaders like Hyperliquid that report upwards of 70k daily users.

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Stay tuned for more insights in Galaxy Research’s quarterly Solana checkup, coming soon.

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