Blockchains Earned Over $6.9B Transaction Fees in 2024

Which Blockchains Earn the Most Fees?

Ethereum earned the most fees among all blockchains in 2024, generating an annual total of $2.48 billion from gas fees. Tron emerged as the second highest earning blockchain, recording $2.15 billion in total annual fees last year. This means that on a daily average basis, Ethereum earned $6.79 million a day and Tron earned $5.89 million daily in fees last year.

Bitcoin and Solana followed further behind with $922.89 million and $750.65 million in annual fees respectively. BNB Chain was the only other blockchain to earn in the hundreds of millions, with $194.78 million in annual fees.

In total, layer 1 (L1) and layer 2 (L2) blockchains earned over $6.89 billion from transaction fees in 2024. Specifically, L1s recorded $6.60 billion in fees earned across 21 blockchains and L2s earned $294.92 million across 12 blockchains.

The top 10 highest earning blockchains alone recorded $6.74 billion in combined fees earnings. Notably, 4 out of the top 10 highest earning blockchains are layer 2s – namely Base, Arbitrum, Linea and Optimism – which overtook other layer 1s including TON in annual fees earned last year.

Ethereum Fee Earnings Over Time

Ethereum’s $2.48 billion fee earnings in 2024 represent a 3.0% increase from the $2.41 billion fees it earned in 2023. This suggests that Ethereum has continued to lead in fee earnings despite the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 that reduced L2 transaction costs, and the ongoing user migration from the L1 chain to its L2 scaling solutions. Ethereum’s resilient fee earnings also comes in contrast to the price performance of ETH, which fell below expectations last year.

The amount of fees earned by Ethereum have fluctuated from month to month. In 2023, Ethereum earned between $91.22 million and $448.70 million per month, recording higher fee earnings during the memecoin mania in May and year-end market rally. The range widened in 2024 with Ethereum earning between $62.82 million and $606.77 million per month.

Notably, Ethereum earned $1.17 billion in Q1 2024 alone, which accounted for almost half of its total fee earnings for the year. This was also Ethereum’s highest earning quarter in the last two years, driven by increased onchain activity amid widespread airdrop programs.

Tron, Solana Saw Strong Growth in Fee Earnings

Tron achieved a significant 116.7% increase in fee earnings last year, from $922.08 million in 2023 to the $2.15 billion earned in 2024. As one of the largest blockchains for stablecoins, accelerating stablecoin usage has fueled steady growth in Tron’s monthly fee earnings, from $38.36 million in January 2023 to a high of $342.54 million in December 2024. 

Tron has outpaced Ethereum with higher fee earnings in the last six consecutive months, however it remains to be seen whether Tron will be able to surpass Ethereum as the top fee-earning blockchain this year.

Solana saw an even larger jump of 2,838.0% in its annual fee earnings, from just $25.55 million in 2023 to the $750.65 million recorded in 2024. Solana was by far the most popular blockchain ecosystem last year, with transaction volume surging to the point of network congestion in April 2024. Unlike Tron, Solana’s monthly fee earnings remained flat throughout 2023 and experienced a more erratic rise in 2024, from $15.54 million in January to a high of $197.50 in November, then moderating to $120.95 million in December.

In comparison, Bitcoin’s 15.9% growth in annual fee earnings and BNB Chain’s 8.7% growth were much more modest, but still outpaced Ethereum’s 3.0%. Bitcoin has seen its fee earning ability strengthen in recent years, driven by increased activity from Ordinal NFTs, BRC-20 and Rune tokens, as well as rapidly growing interest to build on Bitcoin. 

Meanwhile, TON ranked as the 10th highest fee-earning blockchain, with $35.28 million in annual fees earned last year. This comes after popular messaging app Telegram officially integrated TON, enabling more accessible onchain interactions such as tap-to-earn blockchain games.

Which Layer 2s Earn the Most Fees?

Base earned by far the most gas fees among L2s, generating a total of $84.78 million in 2024. This represents a 548.2% increase from the $13.08 million annual fees earned in 2023, although it is worth noting that Base only launched its mainnet in August 2023.

Even accounting for mainnet launch, Base’s fee earnings have tripled from a quarterly average of $6.38 million in the second half of 2023, to $21.20 million in 2024. Like Solana, Base has enjoyed strong adoption due to its retail-friendliness, which is further amplified by its Coinbase integration.

Similarly, Linea’s mainnet launched in August 2023, which partly accounted for the 62.0% increase in annual fee earnings from $24.20 million in 2023 to $39.20 million last year. Linea earned the majority of its 2024 annual fees in Q1, when it recorded a quarterly high of $31.40 million amid the Linea Park airdrop campaign.

Meanwhile, Optimism recorded a minor 1.9% increase in annual fee earnings, from $37.26 million in 2023 to $37.97 million in 2024.

Arbitrum, zkSync Fee Earnings Shrank

Arbitrum was the second highest fee-earning L2 at $44.10 million in 2024. However, this represented a 30.1% decrease from the $63.12 million Arbitrum had earned in 2023. Despite being established players, both Arbitrum and Optimism faced strong challenges amid an increasingly competitive L2 space.

zkSync experienced an even larger drop of 59.6%, from earning $60.04 million annual fees in 2023 to $24.27 million in 2024. In particular, zkSync’s quarterly fee earnings averaged $20.04 million from Q2 2023 to Q1 2024 during the L2’s airdrop points program, but subsequently plunged to a quarterly average of $0.99 million from Q2 to Q4 2024.

Overall, fluctuations in L2 fee earnings for now seem to mainly reflect onchain activity driven by token airdrop and incentive marketing programs. As such, it remains to be seen how much fees L2 chains can earn in the long term.

Blockchains Ranked by Fees Earned

The total annual fees earned by blockchains in 2024 are as follows: 

Methodology

The study examined gas fees earned by layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024, based on TokenTerminal and Artemis data. Blockchains with insufficient publicly available fee data were excluded. 

This study is for illustrative and informational purposes only, and is not financial advice. Always do your own research and be careful when putting your money into any crypto or financial asset.

This article was authored by Mensholong Lepcha (@odyssey_0x).

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