Ethereum lost over $100 million in fees this year, and one corporate giant kept the profit
The Ethereum blockchain recorded its strongest operational 12 months in historical past in 2025, processing report transaction volumes and securing the overwhelming majority of the DeFi market.
However, the crypto asset that powers the community did not mirror that development, posting double-digit losses for the 12 months.
According to CryptoSlate’s knowledge, ETH is buying and selling down 10% year-to-date at beneath $3000. Its efficiency in opposition to Bitcoin, the flagship digital asset, has additionally lagged, with the ETH/BTC ratio falling 6% since the begin of the 12 months.
This divergence highlights a elementary shift in the economics of the world’s most generally used business blockchain.
While community utility has soared, technical upgrades designed to decrease prices for customers have considerably decreased the income flowing to the core community, decoupling the worth of Ether from the exercise on its rails.
The $100 million loss
One of the most important issue in Ethereum’s monetary profile this 12 months was the collapse of “hire” paid by Layer-2 networks.
These networks, which bundle transactions collectively to save lots of prices earlier than settling them on the major Ethereum blockchain, beforehand served as a serious supply of payment income.
In 2024, Layer-2 networks generated $277 million in complete income. Of that quantity, they paid roughly $113 million—or 41%—to the Ethereum mainnet to course of knowledge and safe the community.
In 2025, that income mannequin inverted. According to Growthepie knowledge, the complete income for Layer-2 networks fell 53% to $129.17 million as fees had been lowered for finish customers.
However, the value paid to the Ethereum mainnet plummeted even additional. Layer-2 networks paid round $10 million to Ethereum for safety in 2025, representing lower than 10% of their complete income.
The remaining $119 million was retained as profit by the Layer-2 operators.
Effectively, this meant Ethereum sacrificed greater than $100 million in assured payment income this 12 months to safe its long-term survival.
This decline stems from the “Dencun” upgrade applied final 12 months. The replace efficiently lowered transaction fees, successfully subsidizing the ecosystem’s development by decreasing the earnings Ethereum collects from the “Layer-2” networks constructed on high of it.
This allowed the community to course of larger volumes of site visitors with out clogging the major blockchain or spiking fees.
While the technical implementation succeeded in making Ethereum cheaper and quicker, it eliminated a key driver of demand for the ETH token.
In earlier years, high community utilization resulted in high fees, a portion of which had been “burned” thereby decreasing provide and supporting the worth.
With fees hitting report lows in 2025, the deflationary strain on the token provide has weakened considerably. As a consequence, Ethereum’s inflation rate has elevated by 0.204% since the merge occasion in September 2022.
Coinbase community dominates profit share
The rearrangement of Ethereum’s economics has created a consolidated marketplace for scaling options, with one dominant participant capturing the majority of the sector’s earnings.
Base, the Layer-2 network developed by the publicly traded US trade Coinbase, generated greater than $75 million in income in 2025. This determine represents practically 60% of the whole Layer-2 sector’s income for the 12 months.
Base’s monetary efficiency far outpaced its decentralized rivals. Arbitrum, which held a major market lead in prior years, generated roughly $25 million in income, taking second place.
Other rivals noticed decrease values. The Polygon community generated $5 million in income, whereas Consensys-backed Linea introduced in $3.94 million. Optimism, one other early chief in the scaling sector, earned roughly $3.83 million.
This focus of income marks a departure from 2024, when the market was extra evenly distributed. In the earlier 12 months, Arbitrum generated $42 million, Linea generated $36.6 million, and Scroll generated $35 million.
The rise of Base means that distribution channels and person expertise have turn into the deciding elements in the scaling wars.
By integrating the community immediately into its trade merchandise, Coinbase has efficiently funneled retail exercise onto its personal rails.
Consequently, a good portion of the worth generated by the Ethereum ecosystem now accrues to the stability sheet of a definite corporate entity quite than the broader community contributors.
Market share hits multi-year high
Despite ETH’s price performance, institutional adoption of the Ethereum network continues to be accelerating.
Available knowledge signifies that buyers will not be leaving the ecosystem for quicker or cheaper different blockchains, a development that outlined the 2022 bear market.
For context, Ethereum’s dominance of the DeFi sector expanded all through 2024 and 2025. The blockchain community’s mainnet now secures roughly 64% of the complete worth locked (TVL) in DeFi purposes, up from a cycle low of roughly 45% in 2022.
Leon Waidmann, the head of analysis at Onchain HQ, posited that the Ethereum ecosystem’s market share rises above 70% when property held on Layer-2 networks like Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, are included.
This consolidation suggests a “flight to high quality” amongst giant capital allocators.
As the business matures, establishments are prioritizing Ethereum’s safety and authorized readability over the speculative upside of newer, extra risky blockchains.
The community has successfully turn into the settlement layer for the business, at the same time as the particular mechanism for capturing worth from that exercise stays beneath strain.
At the identical time, analysts observe that the ecosystem’s stability stands in distinction to earlier market cycles.
Transaction volumes are accelerating into the year-end with out the “blow-off high” hypothesis usually seen throughout peaks, suggesting the development is pushed by elementary utilization quite than short-term buying and selling frenzies.
Investors weigh utility in opposition to worth
Nonetheless, the widening hole between Ethereum’s operational success and its market valuation presents a posh outlook for buyers heading into 2026.
The 10% year-to-date decline in ETH’s worth displays uncertainty concerning the token’s position in this new low-fee surroundings.
With the mainnet successfully subsidizing the Layer-2 networks, the direct correlation between elevated transaction quantity and elevated token worth has been disrupted.
Market observers level out that whereas the ecosystem is more healthy than ever, the monetary advantages are at the moment siloed in the utility and scaling layers.
However, the community supporters argue that this is a obligatory transition section. They argue that Ethereum has secured its place as the international commonplace for blockchain settlement by decreasing prices and growing capability.
According to them, this moat that can ultimately drive long-term worth to the token with BitMine Chair Tom Lee believing the asset might rise above $5000 subsequent 12 months.
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