Author: BlockWeeks Weekly
In the cryptocurrency market, if you only look at market capitalization, you will see a thriving, flourishing digital utopia. Hundreds of billions of dollars in valuations, grand technical whitepapers, the aura of Turing Award winners… everything seems like the dawn of the next generation of the internet.
But if you put on a different pair of glasses—glasses that only look at “on-chain real income (Fees)”—you will see a completely different, even spine-chilling picture: in this so-called trillion-dollar market, the vast majority of “unicorns” are actually zombies that have long since stopped breathing.
Recently, BlockWeeks conducted a detailed analysis of the DeFiLlama public chain “Fees” data, and we discovered an unavoidable structural problem: the crypto public chain has entered an era of “extreme profit concentration and collective zombification of the long tail.”
The core data of this article comes from DeFiLlama's “Fees / Revenue by Chain” panel (data captured on December 16, 2025). The “Fees” defined here refers to the total fees paid by users on-chain (top-line), which is an approximate indicator of the scale of on-chain economic activity, rather than protocol net retained revenue (Protocol Revenue). This article aims to examine the on-chain value capture capabilities of various public chains using this publicly available and unified standard.
1. The Humiliation of $17: The Collapse of the Technological Utopia
According to our capture of DeFiLlama's public data, the most alarming number does not come from the million-dollar giants at the top, but from the bottom: $17.
This is Algorand—a public chain that once bore the title of “blockchain trilemma solver,” founded by Turing Award winner Silvio Micali, and backed by top-tier technology. This was the total protocol revenue for one day.
You read that right, not $170,000, but $17.
At this moment, Algorand's market capitalization is still at the billion-dollar level. A “digital nation” with a market cap of $1 billion generates daily direct tax revenue that is not enough to buy four lattes at Starbucks. It indicates that despite having the most advanced decentralized technology, once there is a lack of real, sustained application demand, its economic value capture capability approaches zero.
This is not just an embarrassment for Algorand; it is the death knell for the entire “classical public chain” camp.
Look at Cardano (ADA), a giant firmly in the top ten by market cap, with millions of wallet addresses. However, the data tells us that its recent daily on-chain fees hover around $6,000. This means that, aside from asset transfers among holders and network maintenance staking, there is a lack of significant commercial activity on that chain—no large-scale lending, no high-frequency trading, no real, paid value exchange.
These public chains are like luxurious ghost towns built at great expense in the middle of a desert. The infrastructure is complete, the roads are wide, and the town hall (foundation) is well-funded, but there are no residents (active paying users) on the streets. They often maintain operations by the town hall continuously selling off reserves (dumping tokens) to cover operational costs.
2. The Ugly Victory: Who is Really Capturing Value?
When the focus shifts to the top of the list, a fact that makes “technological purists” even more uncomfortable emerges: the ones making the most money are often not the ones with the most “elegant” or “decentralized” technology.
Dominating the rankings is Tron, with daily fees reaching $1.24 million. In the eyes of many elitists, Tron may not be considered “technological.” But the market has voted with its feet, providing the ultimate answer: payment is a necessity. Tron carries the vast majority of the on-chain transfer demand for USDT globally. In this speculative and bubble-filled industry, Tron has inadvertently become the only mass-adopted payment layer application—though it merely serves as a shadow banking channel for fiat currency.
It can be said that payment, the oldest and most fundamental internet demand, is currently the only mass adoption in the Crypto world. Tron’s success is a powerful satire on all projects that pursue “perfect technology” while ignoring “real demand.”
Following closely is Solana, with daily fees nearing $600,000. Its success logic is even more straightforward: it is the world’s most active on-chain casino. Meme coins, high-frequency DEX trading, and front-running—these activities contribute the vast majority of fees. Solana’s moat is no longer TPS, but “attention traffic.” The rise of Base is even more disruptive (daily average around $105,000): it proves that distribution channels are far more important than the technology itself. Backed by Coinbase’s massive user base, Base delivers a dimensional blow to other L2s.
This provides a cruel yet clear revelation: in the current Crypto market, the only verified business models capable of generating large-scale on-chain fees are two and a half—low-cost payments (Tron), high-frequency speculation (Solana/Base), and the asset settlement layer (Ethereum), which is continuously being eaten away by L2s.
Aside from this, those once highly anticipated “enterprise-level applications,” “supply chain traceability,” and “Web3 social” have, in the face of cold on-chain fee data, yet to demonstrate scalable payment demand at this stage.
3. The Dilemma of VC Arrangements: Why “Peak at Debut”?
This data also reveals another deep-seated crisis: the new L1/L2 narrative model driven by massive VC funding is facing a brutal monetization test.
We see new public chains like Sui (daily average around $12,000), Sei (daily average around $320), and Starknet (daily average around $10,000), which launched with a halo and raised hundreds of millions of dollars, have their on-chain fee income severely mismatched with their tens of billions or even hundreds of billions in fully diluted valuations (FDV).
The standard script of the past few years has been: VC investment -> team piles on technical highlights -> attract airdrop farmers to inflate data -> tokens go live on exchanges to create wealth -> retail investors take over the narrative -> airdrop farmers withdraw -> on-chain activity data plummets.
This is why many new chains launch with astonishing TPS and daily active users in the hundreds of thousands, only to quickly devolve into “ghost towns” a few months later. Because those users are mercenaries, not residents. When the expectations of airdrops are fulfilled and incentive subsidies stop, the real, organic demand is laid bare—daily fee income of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars simply cannot support the dream of a hundred billion valuation.
We are facing serious “block space inflation.” The industry has built too many chains, too many L2s, and too many data availability (DA) layers, but innovation at the application layer is extremely lacking. It’s like in the early days of broadband network proliferation, where thousands of fiber optic lines were laid, yet no killer applications like Netflix, YouTube, or any must-have applications that consume this bandwidth had emerged.
4. The Awakening of Investors: From “Listening to Stories” to “Checking the Books”
For a long time, the valuation logic in the crypto market has been built on “market dream rate.” The grander the narrative, the richer the imagination, the higher the market cap can soar.
But 2024-2025 is becoming a watershed moment. With macro liquidity tightening and institutional investors demanding more substantial returns, the market is being forced to return to rationality.
For investors, the logic must change:
Beware of “zombie coins”: If a project has a market cap of billions but daily on-chain fees are only a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, this extreme “discrepancy” is often the starting point for long-term declines. Its only support—community faith—will eventually run out.
Focus on “positive cash flow” capability: Look for ecosystems where users are willing to continuously pay for services even without token incentives. The stablecoin transfer fees of Tron, and the transaction fees of Base and Solana, are direct reflections of real demand.
Acknowledge “channels and ecosystems are king”: The success of Base proves that pure technical advantages are becoming increasingly difficult to serve as a moat. Giants with massive user bases (like Coinbase) or native communities that can foster fervent cultures are the more valuable assets at this stage. Purely technical public chains, if they cannot solve the questions of “who will use it and why,” will ultimately become academic exhibits like Algorand.
See through the VC game: Do not pay for the false prosperity driven by subsidies and airdrops anymore.
In the face of the brutal reality of $17 in daily income, rather than paying for grand narratives and empty “digital ghost towns,” it is better to tighten your wallet and turn to those few ecosystems that can generate real cash flow and have active paying users.
This does not deny the long-term value of all technological explorations, but it is a necessary reckoning of the current distorted valuation system. Only when the market learns to pay for “real value generated” rather than overdraw for “promised future stories” can this industry usher in a truly healthy dawn.
Important Notes and Evaluation Framework
The core of this article is to measure the “immediate value capture capability” of various public chains using “on-chain fees” as a unified, public metric. When reading and citing the conclusions of this article, please be sure to understand the following key background and limitations:
1. General Background Explanation
Differences in Development Stages: Some public chains may have advanced technology but are in the early stages, and the user base has not yet formed a scale effect. The data in this article reflects the “current state,” not the “ultimate potential.”
Impact of Fee Models: Some public chains are designed to pursue ultra-low fees (Gas Fee), and their native token prices are relatively low. This means that even if the number of on-chain transactions is considerable, the “total fee income” in dollar terms appears small. This suggests that evaluating such chains should combine metrics like transaction volume and active address count for a comprehensive judgment, but their economic throughput limit in dollar terms remains an objective fact.
2. Evaluation Explanation for Specific Types of Chains
To discuss more fairly, we provide the following evaluation thoughts for specific types of projects:
Chain Type
Evaluation and Suggestions in this Article
Storage/Service Networks
(e.g., Filecoin, Arweave)
There are indeed discrepancies in the metrics. The core value of such networks lies in storage/retrieval services, and their revenue model differs from simple transaction fees. DeFiLlama's “Fees” metric may severely underestimate their actual business activities. If you are an investor, you should focus on examining their storage market capacity, active trading orders, and real storage income streams.
Off-chain/Alliance Business Driven Public Chains
(e.g., some enterprise chains)
The data has limitations. DeFiLlama only counts activities on public chains, and BlockWeeks fully agrees with this viewpoint. However, we also wonder, if the main value of a public chain is not reflected on-chain, then what supports the market value of its publicly issued tokens used for on-chain governance and security?
Low-Fee/High TPS Public Chains
The original design intention is good. However, extremely low fees per transaction mean that the value captured by the chain itself and the validators is very low. The success of this model must rely on extremely high transaction volumes to compensate for the disadvantage of low prices. If low fees fail to attract massive transactions, its economic model may face challenges.
Public Chains with Ecosystem Traffic Concentrated in CEX
It is difficult to evaluate. If a public chain has weak on-chain economic activity and cannot generate sufficient fees, then its practical value and value capture capability as a “decentralized settlement layer” or “smart contract platform” are low. Its value may be closer to that of a mere “digital collectible.”
We have always believed that in a world with highly concentrated profits, projects in the long tail will face a nearly predetermined fate unless they find unique application scenarios (such as games or specific AppChains). Only those platforms that can generate cash flow through real, sustained user demand have the potential to survive long-term and outperform the market.
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