Has Solana already surpassed Ethereum? The true value of public chains can be seen from the debate on the new on-chain indicator REV

REV as an emerging on-chain data indicator reveals the real economic activity and block space demand of public chains, attempting to capture the economic vitality of L1 more authentically. However, Solana's dominance has sparked criticism from the crypto community, primarily Ethereum supporters, for being overly simplistic. This indicator dispute may open a new chapter in public chain evaluation standards.

What is REV? Revealing the "Real Value" of On-Chain Economy

REV, short for Real Economic Value, is a new indicator measuring blockchain protocol revenue. Unlike traditional methods that only look at base transaction fees, REV considers all on-chain income directly related to block space bidding, including:

• Base Fees: Basic transaction execution cost

• Priority Fees: Additional fees users pay to prioritize transactions

• MEV Tips: Additional income earned by validators through transaction ordering, such as Jito tips on Solana

Its purpose is to more authentically reflect market demand for block space and serve as a unified tool for comparing the "economic activity" of public chains.

Which Public Chains Stood Out in the REV Arena?

According to Blockworks Research's three charts on "Network REV, Application Revenue by Chain, Blockchain Key Stats", here are the top performers in the 30-day data from May 2025:

Solana

Network REV reached $121 million, accounting for 48.2% of the entire chain, with App Revenue hitting $226 million, representing 65.9% of total application revenue. Clearly, Solana is currently the dual champion of REV and application layer revenue, far outperforming other public chains.

Tron

Protocol layer revenue reached $53.48 million, accounting for 21.3% of the entire chain, but App Revenue was only $686,000, declining by 9.1%, indicating that its on-chain economic activity is concentrated in non-application layer purposes.

Ethereum

Network REV was $36.66 million, accounting for 14.6% of the entire chain, with App Revenue of $49.31 million, representing 14.3% of total application revenue. Its REV share appears conservative compared to Solana, demonstrating a stable economic foundation and mature application layer ecosystem.

The low REV Share of other chains like BNB Chain, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon PoS indicates lower network activity, though their App Revenue remains at a certain level, with protocol layer revenue still at a relatively low level.

REV Indicator's Advantages and Blind Spots: A New Value Indicator or Overly Biased?

Advantages

• More Comprehensive Revenue Measurement: Including MEV and tips prevents underestimation of on-chain economic activity.

• Quantifying Block Space Demand: High REV indicates high competition and potentially high activity.

• Facilitates Cross-Chain Comparison: Provides a measurable basis for investors and researchers to quickly assess a public chain's immediate economic vitality.

Disadvantages

• Oversimplification of Network Value: Focuses only on short-term, volatile income, failing to reflect developer community, network effects, and ecosystem development potential.

• MEV Controversy: MEV is often seen as detrimental to users, and including it in REV might amplify its negative effects.

• Ignores Long-Term Mechanism Design: Mechanisms like Ethereum's EIP-1559 fee burning policy, which contributes to long-term scarcity, are not reflected in REV.

(What is Gas Limit? Vitalik Hints: Ethereum Will Significantly Increase Gas Limit in 2026, Aiming Not to Sacrifice Decentralization)

Why Are E Guardians Opposing REV?

Opponents like sassal.eth and Mary have expressed three major criticisms of REV on X:

1. Overemphasizing Short-Term Data, Underestimating Ethereum's Long-Term Potential: Network developer adoption, infrastructure construction, and L2 ecosystem cannot be measured by REV.

2. Incorrectly Viewing MEV as Revenue: MEV is considered a "hidden tax" that is detrimental to user experience and long-term network economic development, and should be minimized.

3. Creating an Unbalanced Comparison Between ETH and Solana: REV emphasizes transaction volume and fees, which appears unfavorable to Ethereum, which focuses on security and decentralized design, and lacks meaningful comparison. The community views it as an "unfair assessment" and even a tool to "talk down ETH".

However, Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, holds a neutral opinion, pointing out that while REV is not perfect, it remains a proxy indicator of blockchain economic activity, and one should avoid bias when using it.

(Is Declining Transaction Fees a Decline? Ignas: Ethereum's Essence of Value Has Long Been Reshaped)

Is REV a New L1 Evaluation Standard or a Misleading Indicator?

REV undoubtedly brings new thinking to public chain analysis and evaluation, providing a quantitative basis for measuring network actual usage. However, like other indicators including TVL or App Revenue, it is not a universal standard.

For Solana, REV is a endorsement of glorious achievements; for Ethereum supporters, REV is an immature assessment method. In the future, if combined with developer activity, network effects, and protocol deflation data, it might constitute a more comprehensive on-chain evaluation model.

Securitize launched a composable sBUIDL Token, marking BlackRock's largest tokenized US debt fund BUIDL's entry into the DeFi world, directly integrating through Euler lending protocol on Avalanche, symbolizing traditional financial assets truly entering the on-chain ecosystem, potentially injecting unprecedented liquidity and utility into tokenized assets.

This structure transforms the traditional "buy and hold" asset strategy into a dynamic investment approach that is "composable, transferable, and strategically operable", which holds strong appeal for DAO treasuries and asset management protocols.

From Closed to Open: sBUIDL as a Milestone for RWA Standards

The sToken Vault technology developed by Securitize successfully balances "compliance" and "composability", allowing RWA to participate in on-chain finance without violating regulations. The issuance and integration of sBUIDL also provide a replicable reference template for more tokenized assets to enter DeFi, which is likely of interest to both VanEck and Robinhood.

(Securities tokenization scale reaches $22.6 billion! SEC Chair Atkins: BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have already deployed, regulatory laws need to keep pace with the times)

BV DAO founder @cmdefi also pointed out that sBUIDL has successfully removed the restrictions on tokenized assets, and other mainstream protocols like Aave are expected to follow suit soon.

2025 as the First Year of RWAFi? The Intersection of Institutional Funds and the DeFi World

This integration is the world's first case of an institutional-level tokenized fund directly entering DeFi, which is of great significance. It not only opens the door for RWA to be truly applied on-chain but also provides an example for institutional capital to explore DeFi applications, achieving a qualitative change from "on-chain" to "liquidity":

The birth and application of sBUIDL is an important milestone for RWAFi entering the open finance domain.

(From document crisis to everything on-chain: Why is blockchain the necessary path for digital transformation of capital markets?)

It is not just a new asset class, but the beginning of a new era: "Traditional finance and the on-chain world are no longer parallel universes, but a combination that can interact, collaborate, and co-create liquidity."