TRON achieved the highest Q3 revenues among top blockchain networks, extending the trend of surpassing Ethereum and Bitcoin. The chain reported consistent inflows of fees, based on token traffic and stablecoin usage.
The TRON blockchain once again reported the highest revenues for any chain for Q3 2024. Depending on reporting methods, the protocol achieved between $572M and $577M in revenues for the past three months. The recently ended quarter marked a 43% growth compared to Q2.
TRON on track to re-test ATH
TRX is on track to repeat the record valuation from its 2017 rally. The asset has been gradually growing for the past 12 months, rising from $0.089 at the end of 2023. TRX trading volumes are also constantly rising, reaching a one-year peak in Q3. TRX now achieves more than $380M in daily volumes, solidifying its position as a top 10 asset.
The native TRX token retained its value, trading around $0.15 after news of its profitable quarter.
TRON’s constant revenue production places 12-month fees at $1.6B, with a high level of retention for the final earnings. The chain easily surpassed Ethereum’s 111.57M in quarterly fees, as ETH traffic slowed down. Bitcoin’s network produces more than $830M in value, but that goes toward miners, and is not retained as earnings for the chain. Bitcoin also generates much lower fees compared to TRON’s token-based economy.
Other factors boosting traffic on the network were the renewal of DeFi and DEX trading, as well as the launch of the meme token hub, SunPump. The extra revenues from the exchange were counted toward the peak Q3 result. SunPump produced 34,550,658 TRX ($53.2M) from new launch fees after carrying more than 89,000 new meme assets.
The chain also retains a significant part of the fees, achieving monthly earnings of $20M to $30M consistently. August was TRO’s most successful month, with $38.99M in revenues, despite the market correction.
At the same time, Ethereum’s network does not retain earnings, as it has to pay out incentives to its stakers. The TRON chain currently works as a fat-fee app. Additionally, the peak traffic results in ongoing token burns, as the chain remains slightly deflationary.
TRON retains the lead in on-chain traffic
TokenTerminal has tracked the performance of TRON, which has only been surpassed by Tether (USDT) in terms of quarterly revenues. No other blockchain surpasses the network’s results, which reports one of the highest active daily user counts.
Some of the network’s metrics surpass all other L1 and L2 chains, no matter how scalable. Based on all token transfers, the chain reports more than 8 billion daily transactions.
Traffic and energy use on TRON accelerated recently, getting a boost from the chain’s native DeFi and meme token trading.
The TRON ecosystem is relatively smaller compared even to meme tokens. All TRON-based assets have a total market cap of $15B, surpassed by other classes of tokens or narratives. However, cheap transactions lead to reports of peak token traffic, especially for USDT.
TRON-based USDT has now expanded its supply to 61.8 billion tokens out of a total 119.64 billion tokens. The asset has more than 2.2 million daily transactions, spread across more than 53 million wallets.
Recipients of TRON-based USDT also grew in 2024, up to 3.9 billion wallets in September. The asset also carries a large share of high-liquidity or even whale-sized transactions, as it has been used for both DeFi and sending funds to exchanges.
The low costs of the network add to USDT use cases, further boosting the chain’s fees. TRON is also the most active chain for sending value between $1,000 and $10,000. At the end of September, TRON handled 3.49M transfers in this tier. On a given day, Ethereum handled just 100K transfers with higher amounts of USDT, as gas fees inched up again. USDT can also be used to pay gas fees on TRON through specific wallets.
The TRON ecosystem competes with some of the best L1 and even scalable L2 chains. The chain has its independent source of liquidity with native USDT, and will soon carry a version of Wrapped BTC (WBTC).
TRON has followed most of the recent developments in Web3, though with a different user culture and a different set of apps, DEX and DeFi protocols. The chain’s founder, Justin Sun, remains active in all other projects, including the competitive Ethereum ecosystem. Sun was among the top Eigen layer whales, though he divested a big part of the EIGEN airdrop soon after the token’s launch.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva.
