2025 First Half On-Chain Fee Report: 1,124 protocols achieved profit, revenue exceeded $20 billion

Author: 1kx Network

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

1kx has released the most comprehensive on-chain profit report to date: “1kx On-Chain Income Report (First Half of 2025).” The report aggregates verified on-chain fee data from over 1,200 protocols, clearly illustrating user payment paths, value flows, and the core factors driving growth.

Why are on-chain fees so important?

Because they are the most direct signals of genuine demand for payment:

• On-chain ecosystem = open, globalized, and investment-worthy
• Off-chain ecosystem = restricted, mature

Data comparisons reveal development trends: on-chain application fees have risen 126% year-over-year, while off-chain fees have only increased 15%.

How big is the market?

In 2020, on-chain activity was still in the experimental stage, but by 2025, it has evolved into a real-time measurable $20 billion economy.

Users are paying for hundreds of application scenarios: trading, buying and selling, data storage, cross-application collaboration. We have counted 1,124 protocols that have achieved on-chain profit this year:

How are fees generated?

DeFi remains the core pillar, contributing 63% of total fees, but the industry landscape is rapidly evolving:

• Wallet business (up 260% YoY) is turning interactive interfaces into profit centers
• Consumer applications (up 200%) directly monetize user traffic
• DePIN (big pump 400%) brings computing power and connectivity services on-chain

Does on-chain economy truly exist?

Although total fees have not surpassed the peak of 2021, the ecosystem’s health is stronger than ever:

• At that time, ETH on-chain fees accounted for over 40%; now, transaction costs have decreased by 86%
• The number of profitable protocols has increased eightfold
• Token holders’ dividends have reached a historic high

What are the core driving factors?

Asset prices, measured in USD, determine on-chain fees, which aligns with expectations, but attention should be paid to:

• Price fluctuations trigger seasonal cycles
• After 2021, application fees and valuations show a strong causal relationship (fee growth boosts valuation)
• Specific on-chain factors in certain sectors have significant influence

Who are the winners?

The top 20 protocols account for 70% of total fees, but rankings frequently change, as no industry’s disruption speed surpasses that of the crypto sector:

The top 5 are: meteora, jito, jupiter, raydium, solana

Fees and valuations diverge: while application projects dominate fee generation, their market cap share remains almost unchanged. Why?

The valuation logic for application projects is similar to traditional companies: DeFi’s price-to-earnings ratio is about 17, while public chains are valued at up to 3,900 times, reflecting additional narrative value (store of value methods, national infrastructure, etc.).

What are the future trends for on-chain fees?

Our benchmark forecast indicates that by 2026, on-chain fees will surpass $32 billion, a 63% rise year-over-year, mainly driven by the application layer.

RWA, DePIN, wallets, and consumer applications are entering an accelerated growth phase. As scalability technologies continue to advance, L1 fees will gradually stabilize.

With regulatory support, we believe this marks the beginning of the crypto industry’s maturity: application scale, fee income, and value distribution will ultimately progress together.

Full version: