Ethereum Earns $2.728 Billion in 1-Year Fee Income, Bitcoin Follows with $1.302 Billion

Ethereum has emerged as the leading blockchain in terms of fee revenue, generating a staggering $2.728 billion over the past year, according to a recent analysis by Lookonchain.

The figure underscores Ethereum’s dominant position in the blockchain ecosystem, where it continues to be the go-to platform for decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts.

Furthermore, the high fee revenue is indicative of the heavy usage and demand for its services, driven by various sectors including decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The Ethereum network also reported a robust income of $365 million in the first quarter of 2024, an impressive year-on-year revenue growth of 155%.

Ethereum’s fee revenue, generated through user transactions, reached a notable milestone of $1.17 billion in Q1, an 80% upswing from the previous quarter.

Bitcoin Earns $1.3 Billion in Fee Revenue

Bitcoin, the pioneer of blockchain technology, comes in second with a significant $1.302 billion in fee revenue.

While Bitcoin primarily serves as a store of value and medium of exchange, its substantial fee income highlights its ongoing usage within the cryptocurrency space.

For one, Bitcoin Ordinals, a feature that allows the inscription of arbitrary data on the Bitcoin blockchain, have caused a noticeable increase in transaction fees in 2024.

Moreover, Runes, which lets users inscribe individual satoshis with unique identification numbers, and embed them with arbitrary data directly into the Bitcoin blockchain, has contributed to up to 68% of Bitcoin transactions since the halving.

Following Bitcoin, Tron stands out with $459.39 million in fee revenue.

Solana, known for its high-speed transactions and low fees, generated $241.29 million in fee revenue.

Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Avalanche, and zkSync Era also feature prominently on the list, with fee revenues of $176.56 million, $68.83 million, and $59.77 million, respectively.

Optimism and Polygon, which generated $40.4 million and $23.91 million in fee revenue respectively, are also making significant strides.

These platforms are integral to the Ethereum ecosystem, offering solutions for scalability and lower transaction costs through layer 2 technologies.

Here are the top 10 chains by 1-year fee revenue.#Ethereum earns a fee of $2.728B per year, #Bitcoin earns a fee of $1.302B per year, and #TronNetwork earns a fee of $459.39M per year. pic.twitter.com/ixAiP9g8JA

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 3, 2024

Ethereum ETFs Could See $15-20B in Inflows

Net inflows into spot Ether ETFs could reach an impressive $20 billion within the first year, according to a recent report by Steno Research.

The report further predicts that ether could reach a minimum price of $6,500 by the end of this year, attributing this projection to the expected inflows into spot ETFs and other positive market factors.

Meanwhile, Andrew Kang, a founder and partner at Mechanism Capital, has said that the price of Ether could experience a significant drop to as low as $2,400 following the launch of spot ETFs.

According to Kang, Ether attracts less institutional interest compared to Bitcoin, and there are limited incentives for converting spot Ether into ETF form.

In terms of flows relative to spot Bitcoin ETFs, Kang expects spot Ether ETFs to attract around 15% of the flows seen by spot Bitcoin ETFs.

This estimation aligns with the range estimated by Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart, who suggest that spot Ether ETFs may attract 10-20% of the flows.