Stablecoin issuers dominate on-chain revenue with over 40% share in December

USDT issuer Tether continued its profitable streak with over $500 million in revenue for the last 30 days, making it the best performer in December 2024. According to DeFiLlama data, the stablecoin issuer and its counterparts were responsible for 43.66% of the $1.5 billion in on-chain revenue within that period.

Combined, stablecoin issuers made over $664 million, with Tether and Circle pulling $532.10 million and $132.77 million, respectively. This meant that the two firms accounted for almost all the revenue from stablecoins, which is unsurprising as they already make up more than 90% of the stablecoin market share.

Tether’s December revenue means that its cumulative fees have reached almost $10 billion, continuing a positive trend for the firm despite its dominance declining towards the close of 2024. The company has been using its profits to diversify its business and acquire Bitcoin for its reserves. It is now one of the largest private institutions holding BTC.

The sizable share of revenue from stablecoin issuers also highlights how important stablecoins have become within the entire crypto ecosystem. Their widespread use across the industry has made them money-printing machines and attracted more companies to issue their own stablecoins.

Ethereum leads blockchain networks in revenue

Meanwhile, blockchain networks had the second-highest share of on-chain revenue, with $299.79 million, accounting for 19.71% of all on-chain revenue in the past 30 days. Layer-1 blockchains saw most of the revenue, with Ethereum being the leading blockchain.

The network pulled in $162.49 million, more than twice its closest competitor, Tron, which had only $68.47 million. Ethereum saw a resurgence in activity over the last few months of 2024 as DeFi activity returned to its mainnet, increasing fees and revenue. However, its supply remains inflationary, and ETH continues to trade in the $3,400 – $3,500 range.

Meanwhile, Solana’s revenue last month was only $57.98 million, while BNB Smart Chain recorded $16.19 million and Avalanche had $1.47 million. For Solana, its revenue represents a huge disappointment, particularly because the memecoin launchpad based on the network, Pump.fun generated more revenue during the period with $90.08 million

For Layer-2 networks, Base had the highest monthly revenue, with $13.7 million. Arbitrum managed $2.7 million, while Optimism pulled below $1 million. The relatively low revenue of the L2 networks signals a decline in activity on the chains.

Interestingly, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) generated only $96.1 million in revenue despite significantly higher fees. For instance, Solana-based Raydium recorded $8.54 million in revenue on the back of $132.58 million in fees, while Pancakeswap pulled in $24.9 million despite $90 million in fees. Leading DEX, Uniswap also recorded $23.63 million in revenue over the last 30 days while charging $147.85 million in fees.

Telegram trading bots see massive revenue boost

Although established sub-sectors such as stablecoins, blockchains, and DEXs continue to dominate the revenue list, a new category in the form of Telegram bots appears to be gaining momentum. These bots account for 5.99% of all revenue in the last 30 days, with $91.08 million higher than sectors such as trading apps, wallets, NFT marketplaces, Liquid staking, Yield, etc.

Crypto bots on Telegram make crypto trading more accessible to people via the social messaging platform. With Telegram becoming more synonymous with the crypto crowd, bot usage has grown, as is evident in their revenue and fees. Over the last 24 hours, the bots generated $3.28 million in fees, according to DeFiLlama data.

As for the top performers over the last 30 days, BullX led the line with $26.25 million, followed by the popular BONKbot with $19.06 million and Trojan with $18.54 million. Maestro also had $6.27 million, while GMGN recorded $8.63 million.

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