DeFi Analytics 2nd May 2025

Chain Fee Generation

Daily Fees Generated across Ethereum & Solana - Ethereum's daily fee generation dropped to lows of around $0.5M, stabilizing at that level after a week of elevated figures last week, when daily fees were nearly double at $1M. Solana's fee generation remained within a stable range of approximately $1.3M to $1.55M, slightly above the previous week. Given this, Solana outperformed Ethereum every single day during this period, with the gap between Solana's daily fees and Ethereum’s now widening to nearly threefold.

Daily Fees Generated across Ethereum & Solana

Ethereum Gas Market

ETH Gas Fees - Overall demand remains low as hourly average gas fees burned per block saw a slight peak to only 0.2ETH on April 23. Similarly, the cost to transfer ETH (21,000 Gas) peaked at just $0.40.

Hourly Average Gas Fees Burnt per Block

Hourly Average Cost to Transfer ETH (21,000 Gas)

ETH Blob Gas - Hourly average Blob gas usage remains steady at the 400k mark with slightly wider size fluctuations . The hourly average of excess Blob gas per block stayed elevated throughout the week, consistently above 75M with no significant drawdowns.

‍Hourly Average Blob Gas Usage per Ethereum Block

Hourly Average Excess Blob Gas per Ethereum Block

Beacon Chain Balance

Beacon Chain - Beacon Chain balance held broadly steady this week at 34.3M, with deposits slightly lower than withdrawals, resulting in no significant change. Both withdrawals and deposits remained minimal, showing no standout peaks in demand on either side.

Beacon Chain Summary

Beacon Chain Timeseries

Beacon Chain - Over the last week, the Beacon Chain maintained a steady net outflow of validators, with a continued dominance of validators transitioning into the "withdrawal possible" state - those who have exited and are now eligible to reclaim their ETH. The "exited unslashed" group also remained a significant contributor to outflows, indicating voluntary exits without penalties. In contrast, validator inflows stayed modest, with low but stable bars for both "pending initialized" and "pending queued". The lack of noticeable activity in "exited slashed" and "active slashed" reinforces that slashing events are negligible and these are optional moves.

Beacon Chain Validator States

Uniswap V3

Uniswap V3 Hourly Volumes  - Arbitrum

Uniswap V3 - Hourly volumes remain on Arbitrum low but stable with no standout peaks in demand. Hourly transaction counts also reflects a similar picture with a support level at 4k per hour.

Uniswap V3 Hourly Transaction Count  - Arbitrum

Liquidations

Aggregate Liquidations across Aave & Compound - With low realised volatility this week in BTC, reflected by the stable sideways movement in spot, users across Aave & Compound experienced negligible liquidations.

Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade

Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade - Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade, currently scheduled for May 7th, 2025, is poised to have a meaningful impact on DeFi activity and network dynamics. With Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that aim to enhance network scalability, staking efficiency, and user experience, the upgrade introduces structural changes that could shift key DeFi metrics in the weeks after implementation.

For a deeper dive into the technical improvements and broader market implications of Pectra, including insights on validator changes and blob space adjustments, read our full Ethereum upgrade report here.