Ethereum marked its 11th anniversary on July 30 while hosting $148.8 billion in stablecoins and $15.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets. Yet its base chain generated just $330,000 in daily revenue, reviving the debate over whether ETH still captures the value flowing through the network it secures.
Ethereum turned 11 on July 30, the anniversary of the day users generated the Frontier genesis block in 2015. The network now secures $148.8 billion in stablecoins and roughly $15.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets, according to DeFiLlama and RWA.xyz data. Yet its base chain generated roughly $734,000 in fees and $330,000 in revenue over the same 24-hour window. Ethereum-based applications generated about $8.56 million in fees over that same window.
Cheaper transactions squeeze ETH's fee burn
Falling transaction fees help explain the mismatch. A June 2026 academic study found the median Ethereum mainnet fee fell from more than $2 to less than $0.02 between 2024 and early 2026, while the median layer 2 fee fell by more than 95% over the same period. Cheaper transactions made the network more useful, but they also cut into the fee burn that once anchored ETH's "ultrasound money" thesis.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has already conceded the problem. According to Buterin, ETH must "continues to accrue value even in an L2-heavy world". His proposed fixes run through four channels: ETH as the network's primary collateral and monetary asset, rollups that return part of their economics to ETH, support for based rollups, and greater demand for blob space.
He has cautioned against relying on any single mechanism to solve the problem. Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin instead argues the network should keep base-layer fees low to drive adoption, with ETH accruing value through its monetary premium, staking demand, and the amount of ETH locked across the network.
Governance shifts as the Foundation steps back
Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation cut 54 positions in June and reorganized around protocol, access, user, community, and institutional layers. Former Foundation contributors formed Ethlabs to handle research, while Ethereum Institutional took shape separately as a front door for institutional finance, backed by BitMine, SharpLink, and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin.
That shift raises a governance question about how much influence large ETH holders should have over the groups now shaping Ethereum's direction.
Source: CryptoSlate
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
