In-depth Analysis of the Revenue Sustainability of Ethereum, Solana, and Tron Three Major Public Chains

Introduction

In today's rapidly evolving blockchain technology landscape, the income sustainability of public chains has become a key indicator for assessing their long-term development potential. This article will focus on the three major mainstream public chains in the current market - Ethereum, Solana, and Tron. By analyzing the composition of their Gas fee income, on-chain economic activities, and user income and expenditure situations, it will delve into the income models of these public chains and their sustainability.

According to the latest data, over the past 30 days, Ethereum has led with a total of $99.89 million in Gas fees, followed closely by Solana and Tron with $46.21 million and $38.97 million in Gas fees, respectively. However, this income advantage has not fully reflected in market popularity and user activity. It is worth noting that Solana has surpassed Ethereum in discussion popularity over the past six months, while Tron has gained widespread recognition in the payment sector due to its low transaction fees.

More notably, the daily active address data presents a starkly different pattern from the Gas fee income: Tron ranks first with 2.1 million daily active addresses, followed closely by Solana with 1.1 million, while Ethereum only has 316,000. This phenomenon highlights the complex relationship between Gas fee income composition, on-chain economic activities, and the sustainability of user revenue and expenditure, providing us with a unique perspective for in-depth analysis of the income sustainability of these three major public chains.

Ethereum

Gas fee revenue composition

Ethereum has undergone a series of significant upgrades, including the transition from Proof of Work ( PoW ) to Proof of Stake ( PoS ) and the implementation of the EIP-1559 proposal, which has had a profound impact on its Gas fee structure. The new Gas fee structure is divided into two parts: the base fee ( Base Fee ) that is automatically destroyed by the system, and the tips ( Tips ) that are directly paid to validators. The destruction mechanism of the base fee is expected to drive ETH into a deflationary state, potentially increasing its value. At the same time, the dynamically adjusted base fee helps optimize network resource allocation, while tips provide additional incentives for validators to maintain network security. This dual structure not only diversifies the income sources for validators, reducing dependence on new coin issuance, but also creates long-term deflationary potential for ETH through the base fee destruction mechanism.

Ethereum has destroyed approximately $47 million worth of ETH through its base fee mechanism in the last 30 days. This data not only reflects the network's level of activity but also provides an important basis for analyzing the contribution ratio of various on-chain activities to total Gas consumption, helping to gain a deeper understanding of the economic impact of different applications and transaction types within the Ethereum ecosystem.

The distribution of Gas fee consumption on the Ethereum network reflects the activity level of its ecosystem and the flow of economic value. Decentralized Finance ( DeFi ) leads with a 60% share, highlighting its core position in the Ethereum ecosystem. Following closely are ETH transfers ( 12% ), MEV ( Maximum Extractable Value, 8% ), and NFTs ( Non-Fungible Tokens, 8% ). These four categories together contribute to 88% of the total Gas consumption, constituting the main economic activities of the Ethereum network. Layer 2 solutions ( 16% ) and smart contract creation ( 12% ) have a smaller share, indirectly reflecting that the development of the Ethereum ecosystem is temporarily in a "low valley period".

Although the Ethereum network is currently in a relatively low period, its Gas fee consumption distribution still shows a diversified ecological pattern, dominated by DeFi, supplemented by ETH transfers, MEV, and multiple fields such as NFTs, demonstrating the network's sustained vitality and wide range of application scenarios, laying a solid foundation for the value growth of the Ethereum network.

on-chain economic activities

DeFi

Decentralized Finance ( DeFi ) is a core component of the Ethereum ecosystem, encompassing a diverse range of segments, including decentralized exchanges ( DEX ), lending platforms, DEX trading bots, stablecoins, derivatives, cryptocurrency wallets, and liquid staking derivatives ( LSD ), among others.

Through an in-depth analysis of Ethereum Gas burning details, we observed that tracks such as DEX, stablecoins, DEX trading bots, and crypto wallets perform outstandingly in terms of Gas consumption, occupying the top positions in the rankings. This reflects the dominant position and user activity of these sub-sectors in the current DeFi ecosystem.

• Uniswap(DEX)

Uniswap, as the largest decentralized exchange in the Ethereum ecosystem, not only provides users with efficient on-chain spot trading services but also serves as the infrastructure for the decentralized finance ecosystem, meeting the rigid demands on the blockchain network.

Uniswap's revenue in the last 30 days is $54.23 million, of which the contribution from burned Gas fees is $8.15 million, accounting for about 17.3% of the Ethereum ecosystem. Statistics show that the trading pairs with the highest trading volume on Uniswap are mainly composed of ETH and stablecoins, while speculative Meme token trading accounts for a very low proportion of the overall trading composition. This phenomenon highlights a healthy ecosystem dominated by normal trading behaviors on the platform.

• 1inch(DEX)

1inch, as a leading decentralized exchange aggregator in the Ethereum ecosystem, provides users with optimal trading paths and prices by integrating liquidity pools from multiple DEXs, particularly demonstrating unique advantages in trading niche tokens.

1inch contributed approximately $1.21 million in Gas fees within the Ethereum ecosystem, accounting for 3% of the total.

The entire DEX segment accounts for more than 40% in the DeFi field, exceeding 25% in the Ethereum ecosystem, highlighting the position of DEX as the most active track on Ethereum. Mainstream DEX projects primarily focus on normal trading and rarely involve Meme tokens, reflecting a healthy ecological composition. Although the DEX segment has the highest share, it only accounts for 25% of the Ethereum ecosystem, demonstrating a reasonable distribution of Gas fees.

Stablecoin transfer

Stablecoin transfers are a key indicator of blockchain prosperity, ranking second only to DEX in the Ethereum ecosystem. They play a role similar to fiat currency in on-chain transactions, providing a pricing benchmark for other tokens and becoming the preferred intermediary for on-chain token trading due to their convenience and low slippage advantages. This is primarily composed of the two mainstream stablecoins in the industry, USDT and USDC, which effectively reflect the capital demand and activity level of the Ethereum ecosystem.

In the past month, the gas fees burned related to stablecoin transfers on the Ethereum chain reached 4.01 million USD, accounting for about 8.5% of the total gas fees burned during the same period. This data not only reflects the strong demand for funds on-chain but also highlights the importance of stablecoin transfers in measuring the sustainable development potential of public chains, as it is directly related to whether a public chain has sufficient funding and user base. The strong performance of Ethereum in this indicator further confirms its leading position and momentum for sustainable development in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

DEX Trading Bot

The rise of DEX trading bots is attributed to the popularity of Meme coins, which serve as automated trading tools specifically designed for DEX traders. They are mainly used to facilitate users in snatching up Meme coins, as the surge in Meme coin projects has led to extremely high market volatility and short cycles. Some even have active periods of less than 10 minutes, making trading significantly more challenging. Often, a mere difference of a few seconds in buying opportunities can determine profits and losses. As a result, many trading users adopt DEX trading bots to seize the opening of Meme coins. This process not only incurs a large amount of Gas fees but also includes a substantial proportion of bribery fees, with the aim of securing blockchain miners to prioritize packaging their transactions, thus gaining a competitive advantage in Meme coin trading.

Data shows that the DEX trading robot project ( mainly ranks third in Gas fee contributions, just behind Uniswap and Ethereum/stablecoin transfers, with Banana Gun and Maestro ).

Banana Gun, as a cross-chain compatible DEX trading robot project, is mainly active on the Ethereum chain, contributing up to $1.73 million in gas fees in the past 30 days. It not only ranks first among all DEX trading robot projects but also accounts for 3.68% of the entire Ethereum ecosystem, highlighting its dominant position in the field of automated trading tools.

Maestro is also a multi-chain compatible DEX trading robot project, with Ethereum as its main application scenario. In the last 30 days, it generated 1.51 million dollars in Gas fees, ranking second among DEX trading robot projects, accounting for 3.21% of the total Gas fees in the Ethereum ecosystem, highlighting its significant influence in the automated trading market.

The significant position of the DEX trading bot track in the Ethereum ecosystem ( ranks third in Gas fee contributions, accounting for approximately 6.9% ), reflecting its importance, while the head effect is obvious (. Banana Gun and Maestro occupy over 90% of the market share ), which not only showcases the concentration of this track but also indirectly reflects the reasonable popularity of Meme coin trading on the Ethereum chain. This balance meets trading demands while avoiding the negative impact that excessive speculation may have on normal ecological projects on the chain, thus providing strong support for the healthy development of the Ethereum ecosystem.

(# cryptocurrency wallet

Wallets, as the infrastructure for user activities on public chains, not only reflect the real user activity on-chain through their Gas fee contributions but also serve as a key indicator of the health of the public chain ecosystem. Data shows that MetaMask, as the most widely used on-chain wallet project, dominates the Ethereum ecosystem, contributing $2.91 million in Gas fees and burning $940,000 over the past 30 days, accounting for about 2% of the total Gas fees on the Ethereum chain, highlighting the important position of the wallet sector in the public chain ecosystem.

)# On-chain transfer

As the second-ranked on-chain activity, Ethereum chain transfers have burned $3.83 million in Gas fees over the past month, contributing an estimated total of about $25.5 million in Gas fees, accounting for approximately 12% of the total Gas fees in the Ethereum ecosystem, highlighting its important position and the strong demand from users within the ETH ecosystem.

MEV

MEV, as a unique phenomenon in the blockchain transaction processing stage, is manifested on the Ethereum chain as the additional fees paid by users to expedite transactions, where the base fee is burned, and the miner tips go directly to the miners. This mechanism became clearer after the EIP-1559 upgrade. Excessive MEV demand often reflects unhealthy development in the on-chain ecosystem, especially in Meme coin projects, where time sensitivity leads users to continuously raise MEV fees to gain an advantage. Therefore, the amount of MEV fees can indirectly reflect the activity level of on-chain Meme coin projects to some extent. The burning fees of MEV on the Ethereum chain amount to approximately $3.76 million, accounting for 8% of the total burning fees on the chain. This data indicates that participation in Meme coin projects does not dominate the Ethereum ecosystem.

( Ethereum ecosystem summary

The Ethereum ecosystem demonstrates a diversified development trend, but is concentrated in several main areas. The DeFi sector leads with a 60% share of Gas fees, highlighting its core position, while the internal segmentation of tracks is reasonably distributed. ETH transfers )12%###, MEV ###8%###, and NFTs (8%) follow closely, with these four categories accounting for a total of 88% of Gas consumption. The segments with the highest on-chain Gas fee burning are DEX (26%), on-chain transfers and stablecoins (17%), DEX trading bots (7%), and the wallet sector (3%), which together account for 53%. Layer 2 solutions (6%) and smart contract creation (2%) have a smaller share, reflecting that the ecosystem's development may be in a "valley period." Nevertheless, this decentralized distribution of Gas fees still reflects the relatively balanced development of various tracks within Ethereum, without any single track showing excessive concentration, demonstrating the overall health of the ecosystem.

Solana

( Transaction Fee Composition

The fees and costs on the Solana chain can be divided into three parts:

• Transaction Fees - Fees for validators processing transactions/instructions
• Priority Fee - An optional fee to increase the transaction processing order.