Layer 1 blockchain TRON, founded by Justin Sun in 2018, is leading all blockchains in network fees over the last month, surpassing Ethereum, the usual leader, by 28%.
TRON has generated $56.7 million in fees over the last 30 days, fueled by 267 million transactions, while Ethereum generated $44.33 million across 49 million transactions, according to Nansen.
Despite the big month, TRON still trails Ethereum and Solana in yearly fees, with $669.5 million compared to Solana’s $917 million and Ethereum’s $1.06 billion.
TRON introduced several integrations in August, including a collaboration to launch Kraken’s tokenized xStocks on TRON. The TRON DAO attributes the jump in activity to PayFi companies launching on the blockchain and increased stablecoin transfers.
“TRON has been prioritizing RWAs, Stablecoins, and bringing more assets on chain…A wide range of dApps and protocols run on TRON (DEXs, lending, payments, NFTs), but current fee revenue is driven more by very high-volume stablecoin transfers than by protocol-level DeFi fees alone,” said Sam Elfarra, a community spokesperson for the TRON DAO.
“TRON’s strong share of global blockchain protocol revenue is driven by sustained user activity, high transaction volumes, and a robust stablecoin ecosystem — all of which are measurable on-chain and reflect the network’s established role in digital payments and settlements,” Elfarra added.
The network has also been tapped by the U.S Commerce Department as a destination for secure commerce data, with the agency publishing U.S. GDP figures on Tron earlier this month.
While the increased adoption highlights TRON’s growing presence in the United States, recent drama between Justin Sun and the Trump family's DeFi project, World Liberty Financial, has left a sour taste in some supporters' mouths.
WLFI Controversy
World Liberty Financial, co-founded by the President’s son, Donald Trump Jr, surprisingly blacklisted Sun’s onchain address that holds more than 500 million WLFI tokens, worth roughly $95 million, after the address transferred roughly $1 million in WLFI to centralized exchange HTX, potentially to be sold.
The blacklist function essentially freezes the wallet’s capabilities with WLFI contracts, but it is unclear whether this will fully prevent token transfers.
Details surrounding the move remain unclear, but Sun conveyed his dismay on X, saying, “However, during the course of operations, my tokens were unreasonably frozen. As one of the early investors, I joined together with everyone—we bought in the same way, and we all deserve the same rights….I call on the team to respect these principles, unlock my tokens, and let’s move forward together toward the success of World Liberty Financial.”
Neither World Liberty Financial nor Donald Trump Jr have publicly commented on the matter yet.
