Ethereum Tops Blockchain Fee Earnings in 2024 with $2.48B – Tron Follows Close Behind

1. Ethereum remained the leader in blockchain fee earnings for 2024, generating $2.48B from gas fees.
2. Tron saw a substantial increase, reaching $2.15B in fees, outpacing Ethereum in recent months.
3. Layer 1 blockchains earned $6.60B in fees, while Layer 2s contributed $294.92M.

Ethereum stood out as the top fee earner in the blockchain industry, generating $2.48 billion in gas fees in 2024. This marks a 3.0% increase from its earnings in 2023, a solid sign of resilience despite Ethereum’s ongoing shift towards Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions, according to the report from CoinGecko.

On a daily basis, ETH earned approximately $6.79 million, outpacing all other blockchains. A significant factor driving these earnings was the surge in on-chain activity during Q1 2024, which accounted for nearly half of the total fees earned by Ethereum for the year.

The fluctuations in Ethereum’s monthly fee earnings were noticeable, ranging from $62.82 million to $606.77 million, driven largely by high activity during the memecoin frenzy in May and the year-end rally. Despite the shift towards Layer 2 solutions, Ethereum has managed to maintain its position at the top of the leaderboard.

Tron and Solana: Rising Ethereum Competitors

Tron, securing the second spot, reported impressive growth, recording a 116.7% increase in annual fee earnings from $922 million in 2023 to $2.15 billion in 2024. The blockchain’s strong stablecoin ecosystem has been a key driver of this growth, with Tron’s monthly fees steadily increasing over the past year.

Although it surpassed Ethereum in the last six months of 2024, it’s still uncertain whether Tron can continue its upward momentum to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in fee generation. Solana’s fee earnings surged 2,838%, from $25.55M in 2023 to $750.65M in 2024, driven by soaring transaction volume. Earnings peaked at $197.5M in November before settling at $120.95M in December.

Layer 2 Blockchains Gain Momentum

While Layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum, Tron, and Bitcoin are leading, Layer 2 blockchains are catching up really fast. Base topped L2s with $84.78 million in fees, a 548.2% rise from 2023, driven by its Coinbase integration. Other L2s, like Linea and Arbitrum, also grew, with Linea’s fees up 62.0%.

Despite facing certain problems, the growing adaption of L2 platforms is the key momentum for their survival, thus showing the strong role of the emerging sidechains in the blockchain ecosystem and transaction fee revenue, even though both Arbitrum and Optimism will experience challenges with sudden price shifts in the future.

By that time, total fee earnings from the Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain had broken a record above $6.89 billion from the contributions of L1s with approximately $6.60 billion and the additions of L2s at $294.92 million. Thus, it is unpredictable if this was going to extend the lead further over the subsequent years with ever-growing blockchain activities and improvements in their handling transaction fees.