Revenue in the cryptocurrency industry is increasingly flowing to user-facing applications rather than the underlying blockchain networks, according to recent data, signaling a potential shift in the focus of investors and developers.
According to data shared by Jamies Coutts, principal crypto analyst at intelligence platform Real Vision, decentralized finance (DeFi) applications are currently charging five times the fees generated by blockchains.
The trend suggests that more of the industry’s fees will be captured by DeFi applications such as wallets, decentralized exchanges (DEX) and other protocols, while core networks will attract a smaller share of revenue.
“While I believe that the network effects of blockchain will always have higher value, it makes sense that more value than currently assigned should move to the front end – the wallets, DeFi applications and protocols closest to users.” he wrote Coutts in Thursday’s X post.
The chart shows a significant boost in the share of fees captured by DeFi protocols compared to roughly parity in mid-2024.
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DeFi applications and protocols become the 17th highest earner in the blockchain industry
Data collected by DeFiLlama shows that DeFi protocols currently dominate the rankings of top-earning crypto products. The top 17 fee generators over the last 30 days were applications or protocols, not core layer blockchains.
Solana raised over $20.4 million in fees in the last 30 days and was the only blockchain in the top 20. However, this pales in comparison to the $563 million generated by stablecoin issuer Tether, the leading protocol in terms of fees, According to to DeFiLlama.
Ethereum was the only other blockchain to crack the top 30, with $10.3 million generated in 27th place.
The dynamics suggest that developers and institutional investors may pay increasing attention to DeFi applications rather than the underlying blockchain layer as applications attract a growing share of total revenues.
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Solana’s leading position among networks can be attributed to its activity, as Solana was the most used network, with over 68 million energetic addresses in the last 30 days, an boost of 14%, according to the crypto platform Nansen.
Ethereum was in sixth place with 13 million monthly energetic addresses, up 53% in the last 30 days.
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