Key Insights
Ethereum has the highest position in fee revenue, DeFi TVL, and stablecoin reserves.
Further, as many as 152 Layer-2 projects and 67 layer-3 applications depend on Ethereum.
Finally, with no direct competition, Ethereum sees no threat from other projects.
The current drop in Ethereum's price, therefore seems temporary.
Last year in 2024, Ethereum had the highest on-chain revenue at $2.5 billion beating Tron's $2.1 billion and Bitcoin's $923 million.
Tron Beats Most Chains in Fee Earned in 2024
CoinGecko
Ethereum managed to get the highest growth in the year 2024 despite cutting its fees by 99% in March 2024. By September, we saw Ethereum gas fees falling below 1 Gwei, which was a boon for individual users as well as Layer-2 and Layer-3 solutions like Polygon, Arbitrum, Base and Uniswap.
Though some issues still remain unsolved in regard to fees like volatility, temporariness of the "Blob" system and using ERC-20 for paying fees, we hope both of these will be resolved in the upcoming Pectra Upgrade. If not, we expect a definitive move towards them.
Ethereum owns the largest DeFi ecosystem with over $51 billion in TVL and $126 billion in stablecoin reserves on its blockchain. This data is from Ethereum alone. The entire EVM ecosystem, all 50+ chains running on Ethereum's network own roughly owns another $10 billion in on-chain TVL.
Top 15 Blockchains wrt TVL
DeFi Llama
Further, if you explore EVM-compatible blockchains , i.e., those chains which can easily bridge funds to Ethereum, such as Tron and Berachain, we have another $15 billion in TVL.
In the best case scenario when Ethereum successfully implements its Pectra Upgrades and solves all its remaining issues, it could attract at least 75% of these additional $25 billion TVl i.e., $17.5 billion. The upgrade is expected to take place around late April to early May 2025.
Ethereum has several blockchains that run on its EVM and rely on its blockchain for security. This ecosystem consists of top players like Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Linea, Shibarium, and many other key players in the crypto markets. In total Ethereum has over 63 Rollups, 84 Validiums and Optimiums, and 5 other projects, bringing the tally to over 152 layer-2 and layer-3 projects.
Ethereum-dependent Chains
L2 Beat
All these projects pay a batch fees for each block they process on the Ethereum layer-1 chain. The fees paid by these chains is counted as blob fees in Ethereum's revenue.
There are at least 67 big and small decentralized exchanges on the Ethereum blockchain which generate another revenue source for Ethereum. Some well-known names are: Uniswap, Curve Finance,
List of Top 15 DEXs on Ethereum
DeFi Llama
Stablecoins are the liquidity providers for the crypto markets and any blockchain cannot survive without a decent reserve of stablecoins on its chains. Ethereum is the most preferred blockchain for stablecoin transactions and Tether's USDT, the largest stablecoin contributes around 5% to 10% of all the fees on Ethereum.
Tether is the Largest Fee Contributor to Ethereum
EtherScan
The best aspect about stablecoin fees is that they contribute a stable source of revenue for Ethereum. Even when crypto markets are in a bearish phase, most investors cash out and keep their reserves in stablecoins so that they can deploy them when the markets stop falling.
Ethereum's central role in the world of crypto is undeniable. Further, the fees collected by ETH validators comes from such diverse sources that it is unlikely to dry up like what happened with Solana after the memecoin frenzy ended.
Further, comparing Ethereum with other altcoins like XRP, Cardano, Chainlink, and Tron, we feel that no other chain is a direct competitor of Ethereum. Even during Solana bull run, which happened due to the memecoin cycle, memecoin trading fees contributed a negligible amount of revenue to Ethereum.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.