L1 Blockchains and DeFi Protocols Dominate Crypto Fee Generation

Ethereum generated the most fees among the top twenty protocols over the past 30 days at nearly $180 million, according to new data from Token Terminal.

On June 17, the cryptocurrency analytics platform reported that Ethereum was well ahead of other blockchains, which were dominated by layer 1 chains and DeFi protocols, with only one layer 2 blockchain in the top 20. The Coinbase blockchain produced the least amount Fees for the period are $6 million.

“Given that activity on Base has surpassed Ethereum L1, this is a sign of successful L2 scaling.”

🤑Top 20 Fee Generation Protocols in Cryptocurrency in the Past 30 Days👇

🗳️Main meals:

▪️5/20 is a tier 1 blockchain, while only 1/20 is a tier 2 blockchain
▪️Outside the L1 and L2 blockchains, all other protocols belong to the DeFi category
▪️Among the top 20 companies, Ethereum achieved the largest number of… pic.twitter.com/sNG9br9chC

– Token Terminal (@tokenterminal) June 17, 2024

Layer 2 fees fell sharply after the Ethereum Dencun upgrade in March.

Ethereum, Tron and Bitcoin are in the lead

It reported that only Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, and Lido had generated fees of more than $100 million over the past 30 days. Other findings were that Uniswap DAO led fees among decentralized exchanges, while Uniswap Labs had the lowest in the same category.

MakerDAO and Ethena dominated the decentralized stablecoin issuer category, and Aave was the clear market leader in the lending category, with a significant gap between them and second place Morpho. The data did not include Tether or Circle, as they earn their fees and revenue off-chain.

The results indicated that revenue was calculated based on the percentage of receipt rate that the protocol applies to fees. He noted that Bitcoin and Uniswap DAO's take rate is currently 0%, while Ethereum's take rate is around 80%.

Ethereum remains more profitable because the network generates revenue from burning transaction fees and pays relatively low token incentives to validators. Bitcoin does not generate any revenue for BTC holders but pays significant token incentives to miners.

Additionally, the Ethereum ecosystem could get a big boost in terms of adoption and growth if Ethereum ETFs launch next month. This means that the asset is classified as a commodity, which can be the case for other altcoins.

Daily crypto fees

according to Encryption feesEthereum achieved $2.7 million over the past day. However, Bitcoin was just above $2.9 million. Bitcoin fees typically increase when there is higher demand on the network from mints and ordinals.

Uniswap and Aave ranked third and fourth with daily fees of $1.4 million and $1 million, respectively.

Token Terminal suggested that investors should pay attention to fees for early-stage protocols that have not yet started generating income.