TL;DR
- BNB Chain closed 2025 as the fourth network in fee revenue with $259 million, far behind Solana ($606M), Tron ($582M), and Ethereum ($522M).
- The lag is explained by market preferences: Tron offers real payment utility and low fees for microtransactions, while Solana dominates through volume and memecoin activity.
- Despite that, the network grew across key metrics: among the highest active addresses, TVL +40%, transactions +150%, stablecoins at $14 billion, and RWA over $1.8 billion.
BNB Chain ended 2025 as the fourth blockchain in fee revenue, well behind Solana, Tron, and Ethereum. According to Nansen, Binance’s network generated $259 million, while Solana led with $606 million, Tron reached $582 million, and Ethereum posted $522 million. Bitcoin came fifth with $173 million. The wide gap shows that BNB Chain failed to capitalize on either volume or real utility at the level of its strongest competitors.
The main reason is market behavior: Tron provides tangible utility as a payments network and holds 50–60% of the global USDT supply, with low costs that enable microtransactions. Solana dominates through volume, driven by its active memecoin ecosystem. BNB Chain tried to close the gap with low fees—average gas at 0.05 gwei—and the push from Four.meme, a memecoin launchpad, but it wasn’t enough to narrow the distance.
Still, the network showed growth in critical metrics. Its active addresses were among the highest across chains, total value locked rose more than 40%, and transactions grew 150% year-over-year. Stablecoin capitalization reached $14 billion, and real-world assets surpassed $1.8 billion, supported by institutional issuers like BlackRock (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton (BENJI), and VanEck (VBILL).
BNB Chain’s Plans for 2026
BNB Chain progressed in infrastructure. The Lorentz and Maxwell upgrades reduced block times, accelerated transaction finality, and cut fees roughly 20 times without affecting validator rewards. These improvements laid the foundation for 2026.
The team’s plan for 2026 is to transform the network into a highly optimized trading chain. The goal is to scale to 20,000 TPS with sub-second finality while maintaining low costs. To achieve this, they will implement a dual-client approach: Geth for stability and a new Rust-based Reth client for performance. Parallel execution, storage, and database architecture will also be upgraded to handle long-term state growth.
The strategy aims to strengthen scalability and operational efficiency to compete in revenue and real utility metrics, without relying on memecoin speculation or fleeting market trends.
BNB Chain has tools and upgrades that could change its standing. 2026 will be the year to test whether infrastructure and optimizations can translate into greater participation and relevance against Solana, Tron, and Ethereum
