Historic Revenue Milestone
In a notable development on October 21, Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium achieved higher daily fee revenue than the Ethereum network. According to DefiLlama data, Raydium generated $3.4 million in fees, exceeding Ethereum’s $3.35 million.
Post-Dencun Upgrade Impact
This milestone comes as Ethereum continues to adjust following its March Dencun upgrade, which resulted in a dramatic 95% reduction in transaction fees. While Ethereum typically maintains higher revenue than other blockchain networks, it has occasionally been outperformed by individual protocols like Raydium.
Raydium’s Market Position
Raydium has established itself as Solana’s leading DEX, managing approximately $1.8 billion in total value locked (TVL). On the same day, the Solana network generated $2.67 million in revenue, slightly below Ethereum’s earnings.
Historical Context
This isn’t the first instance of Solana-based protocols outperforming Ethereum in daily revenue. Earlier this year, Pump.fun, a memecoin creation tool on Solana, achieved similar feats, notably on June 30 when it generated nearly $2 million in revenue, surpassing Ethereum’s $1.91 million.
Long-term Ethereum Outlook
Looking at the bigger picture, Ethereum has generated $3 billion in transaction fees since its 2015 launch. VanEck’s head of digital asset research, Matthew Sigel, projects ambitious growth for Ethereum, forecasting annual free cash flow of up to $66 billion by 2030, potentially driving ETH prices to $22,000 per token.
Current Network Performance
Ethereum’s current transaction volume is significant, processing approximately $4 trillion in settlements and $5 trillion in stablecoin transfers annually, surpassing PayPal’s volume and approaching Visa’s network scale. The network continues to evolve with mechanisms like fee burning and staking rewards, which affect its token economics and value proposition.
