- Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain led L1 roles across speculation, settlement, and scale.
- Ethereum became a settlement while L2s like Base handled high volume and cheaper execution.
- Stablecoins, privacy chains, and performance L1s grew, driving fragmented niche usage.
In 2025, global Layer 1 blockchain activity shifted despite weak token prices across major markets. Trading concentrated on Solana, BNB Chain, and Ethereum while stablecoins, privacy networks, and performance chains drove usage. These developments were driven by speculation, scaling limits, and rising demand for cheaper settlement.
Speculation Concentrates on High-Throughput Chains
Speculation shaped most retail activity in 2025, especially through memecoin trading on fast and cheap blockchains. Solana and BNB Chain handled much of this volume because they offer quick transactions and strong liquidity. In January, Solana’s decentralized exchange trading hit a record high, largely fueled by the TRUMP and MELANIA tokens.
Those two memecoins accounted for about 48.5% of Solana’s January DEX activity. Pump.fun alone generated roughly 23% of Solana’s year-to-date application revenue. Because of this, launchpads played a key role in Solana’s activity during the height of speculation. But their influence dropped once memecoin hype cooled later in the year.
Ethereum and BNB Chain then regained a larger share of DEX trading, leading to a more balanced market by mid-2025. This shift showed that Solana depended heavily on short bursts of speculative interest rather than a wide range of steady activity.
BNB Chain, however, developed along a different path. Technical upgrades, including the Lorentz and Maxwell hard forks, reduced block times from three seconds to 0.75 seconds. These changes allowed the network to handle sudden activity spikes more efficiently.
At the same time, cultural momentum redirected speculative flows toward BNB Chain-native platforms. Four.meme accounted for roughly 21.8% of BNB Chain’s year-to-date application revenue. Around this activity, DeFi usage consolidated around projects like Aster and Lista DAO.
Ethereum and Its Settlement Role
While speculation moved elsewhere, Ethereum strengthened its role as a settlement and data layer. Total value locked across Ethereum-based DeFi peaked above $97.5 billion during the year. Notably, Ethereum’s transaction count reached record levels, even as usage shifted toward Layer 2 networks.
Base processed more than 3.3 billion transactions year-to-date, compared with roughly 473 million on the Ethereum mainnet. This divergence reflected Ethereum’s rollup-first roadmap. The Pectra hard fork reinforced this direction through execution and consensus upgrades.
At the same time, mainnet fees dropped sharply. Average transaction costs fell from about $7.25 on January 1 to nearly $0.19 later in the year. These levels matched prices last seen in early 2020.
Lower fees supported Ethereum’s function as a settlement layer rather than a high-frequency execution venue. Consequently, Ethereum absorbed value while pushing activity outward to Layer 2s. This structure allowed Ethereum to scale without directly competing on throughput.
Stablecoins and Specialized L1s Shape 2026 Outlook
Stablecoins became the biggest source of activity across major blockchains in 2025. Their total market value grew by about 45%, helped by more than $90 billion in new supply. This expansion supported things like memecoin trading, perpetual markets, prediction platforms, and increased use by institutions.
Stablecoin balances on Solana jumped roughly 159% over the year, boosted by $4.5 billion in new USDC issued early on. Hyperliquid saw about 118% growth, mainly linked to higher perpetual futures trading. Aptos and Polygon also recorded strong gains of 142% and 76%, driven by BUIDL-related deployments.
At the same time, new blockchains built specifically around stablecoins began to appear. These stablecoin-focused networks raised over $548 million in disclosed funding during 2025. Plasma quickly became the eighth-largest Layer 1 by stablecoin supply within three months of launch.
Although Plasma’s activity later declined, new entrants continued to test the model. Stable launched in December, while Circle’s Arc and Stripe–Paradigm’s Tempo remained in testnet. These networks focused on compliance features, simplified fees, and on-chain foreign exchange.
Related: The Role of Layer 1 Blockchains in the Crypto Ecosystem
Specialization extended beyond stablecoins. Privacy-focused networks gained attention after Monero’s hashrate disruption involving Qubic. Following that episode, Zcash posted a 661% year-to-date increase, briefly surpassing Monero in market capitalization.
Zcash’s integration with NEAR Protocol enabled cross-chain private transactions with selective disclosure. Shielded supply rose from about 9% in January to nearly 24% in November. At the same time, performance-focused chains like Monad and Fogo targeted lower latency trading through parallel execution and optimized validators.
As 2026 gets closer, the main blockchain networks are starting to serve more specific purposes instead of all trying to do the same thing. Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Zcash, Plasma, Monad, and others each settled into clearer roles in 2025, whether that was for trading, payments, privacy, speed, or stablecoin activity. Overall, the system became more spread out and specialized, shaped by how people actually use these networks instead of just following price trends.
