Hyperliquid · BNB Chain dominate L1 fee market… Solana's share plunges to 9%

Hyperliquid and BNB Chain have, so far this year, taken the majority of fee share among major Layer 1 (L1) blockchains, sharply displacing Solana, which once held half the market.

According to The Block on the 28th (local time), Solana — which accounted for more than 50% of total major L1 fees earlier this year — has recently fallen to 9%, while Hyperliquid and BNB Chain surged to over 40% and around 20% respectively. Just a few months ago, the combined share of the two chains was about 10%.

This change is analyzed as the result of multiple factors, including market demand, user preferences, and structural shifts. In particular, the meme-coin trading frenzy on Solana sharply cooled after the launch of the 'TRUMP' token earlier this year, which has been cited as a primary cause. Meme-coin trading once made up most of Solana network's fee revenue, but activity has since declined significantly, reducing network traffic.

By contrast, Hyperliquid and BNB Chain have strengthened revenue structures centered on derivatives trading, rapidly increasing their fee shares. Because derivatives trading yields higher fee revenue per trade unit than meme-coin trading, even a relatively small increase in users produced a large expansion in network revenue share.

For BNB Chain, building an integrated ecosystem with Binance Alpha and Binance Wallet effectively absorbed retail investor traffic coming from the world's largest centralized exchange (CEX). This caused on-chain transaction volumes to surge and lifted fee share.

The Block's data insights team analyzed, "For Solana to regain fee share going forward, a native dApp (dApp) that drives large-scale adoption or a new speculative cycle is needed," adding, "If not, Hyperliquid and BNB Chain are likely to maintain their current market positions based on high derivatives trading volumes."

The report also added that "if volatility in the virtual assets (cryptocurrencies) market increases and the phase of expanding derivatives trading volume continues, revenue share will concentrate even more on these two chains."