We publish the same metric set every week so you can compare chains on equal footing instead of reading seven separate dashboards. This edition covers the seven days ending Sunday 27 September 2026.
Every figure below is derived from one shared dataset pulled from DefiLlama's public API, so the numbers in this report cannot disagree with the news review or the intelligence briefing published the same week. Stock metrics (TVL, stablecoin supply) are Sunday snapshots; flow metrics (DEX volume, fees) are weekly totals.
Quick answer
Which chain earned the most network fees during the week of Sep 21 - Sep 27, 2026? Solana, again by a wide margin: $113.7m in weekly fees, up 8.6% from $104.7m, earned on TVL that grew 7.1% to $6.62bn — the fastest deposit growth in the sample. The week as a whole split in two: fees rose 11.1% to $243.4M and TVL rose 2.5% to $79.86B with all seven chains up, but DEX volume fell 5.0% to $44.00B and blended turnover dropped from 0.59x to 0.55x — the networks earned more while trading less.
1 Total Value Locked by chain
| Chain | TVL | Share | W/W | 4-wk avg | vs 4-wk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $53.5B | 67.0% | +1.8% | $50.2B | +6.6% |
| TRON | $5.7B | 7.1% | +1.3% | $5.4B | +3.9% |
| BNB Chain | $5.8B | 7.3% | +1.9% | $5.8B | +1.6% |
| Solana | $6.6B | 8.3% | +7.1% | $6.0B | +10.7% |
| Base | $6.3B | 7.9% | +5.9% | $5.7B | +10.5% |
| Arbitrum | $1.4B | 1.8% | +1.4% | $1.4B | +2.8% |
| Optimism | $0.5B | 0.6% | +4.3% | $0.4B | +10.1% |
Every chain grew — the second all-green week in our sample and the first since the late-August level shift. Solana led on percentage (+7.1%), followed by Base (+5.9%) and Optimism (+4.3%); BNB Chain, TRON and Arbitrum each gained between 1.2% and 1.9%, and Ethereum +1.8% was enough to reach a fresh sample high of $53.54bn. After two weeks of split behaviour, breadth itself is the headline: the deposit drift has reached the smaller chains, not just the large ones.
2 TVL trend, last six weeks
| Chain | 2026-08-23 | 2026-08-30 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $48.7B | $49.0B | $49.3B | $50.1B | $52.6B | $53.5B |
| TRON | $5.2B | $5.2B | $5.4B | $5.5B | $5.6B | $5.7B |
| BNB Chain | $5.5B | $5.5B | $5.8B | $6.0B | $5.7B | $5.8B |
| Solana | $5.6B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $5.9B | $6.2B | $6.6B |
| Base | $5.4B | $5.5B | $5.7B | $5.6B | $5.9B | $6.3B |
| Arbitrum | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B |
| Optimism | $0.4B | $0.4B | $0.4B | $0.4B | $0.5B | $0.5B |
The trend table now shows three consecutive weeks of growth stacked above the late-August plateau, with Ethereum at $53.54bn the highest reading anywhere in the window. The shape is a stair-step rather than a spike — deposit weeks alternating with flat ones, no single repricing event.
3 DEX spot volume and turnover
| Chain | DEX vol | Share | W/W | Turnover | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $10.5B | 23.9% | +0.7% | 0.20 | 2 |
| TRON | $0.3B | 0.7% | +6.7% | 0.06 | 6 |
| BNB Chain | $6.5B | 14.8% | -16.5% | 1.11 | 3 |
| Solana | $18.3B | 41.6% | -7.6% | 2.77 | 1 |
| Base | $6.5B | 14.7% | +4.5% | 1.03 | 4 |
| Arbitrum | $1.6B | 3.7% | +7.3% | 1.12 | 5 |
| Optimism | $0.2B | 0.5% | +4.5% | 0.47 | 7 |
Volume told the opposite story. The two largest venues both fell: Solana eased 7.6% to $18.32bn and BNB Chain dropped 16.5% to $6.51bn, extending the unwind of its two-week surge. The five smaller venues all grew — Arbitrum (+7.3%), TRON (+6.7%), Base (+4.5%), Optimism (+4.5%) and Ethereum (+0.7%) — but five small gains could not offset the two large declines, and the aggregate fell 5.0%.
Solana remains the largest single venue at roughly 1.7 times Ethereum's weekly volume, and its turnover sits at 2.77x — capital turned over more than twice a week against Ethereum's 0.20x. Both turnover readings fell this week; the ratio between the two businesses did not change.
4 DEX volume trend, last six weeks
| Chain | 2026-08-23 | 2026-08-30 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $10.6B | $10.5B | $8.9B | $8.6B | $10.4B | $10.5B |
| TRON | $0.3B | $0.3B | $0.3B | $0.3B | $0.3B | $0.3B |
| BNB Chain | $9.1B | $7.0B | $9.2B | $10.0B | $7.8B | $6.5B |
| Solana | $19.4B | $18.2B | $16.1B | $18.5B | $19.8B | $18.3B |
| Base | $7.7B | $6.8B | $5.8B | $6.6B | $6.2B | $6.5B |
| Arbitrum | $2.0B | $1.4B | $1.3B | $1.1B | $1.5B | $1.6B |
| Optimism | $0.2B | $0.2B | $0.2B | $0.2B | $0.2B | $0.2B |
Six weeks of history frames the divergence precisely: aggregate volume peaked in the week ending 20 September and has now given part of that back, while TVL kept climbing. BNB Chain's row shows the fullest round trip — surge, reversal, and this week a further slide to $6.51bn.
5 Stablecoin supply by chain
| Chain | Stablecoins | Share | W/W | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $147.5B | 52.1% | +0.1% | 1 |
| TRON | $92.8B | 32.8% | -1.3% | 2 |
| BNB Chain | $16.9B | 6.0% | -0.2% | 3 |
| Solana | $16.7B | 5.9% | +6.4% | 4 |
| Base | $5.0B | 1.8% | +0.6% | 5 |
| Arbitrum | $3.8B | 1.4% | -3.8% | 6 |
| Optimism | $0.6B | 0.2% | +1.8% | 7 |
Float contracted 0.1% to $283.32bn — a third consecutive weekly decline, the longest drain in our sample. TRON did the damage at -1.3% ($92.79bn, a z-score of -3.26 against its own baseline), while Solana rebounded +6.4% to $16.74bn. Ethereum was flat (+0.1% to $147.49bn), Arbitrum slipped 3.8%, and Base (+0.6%), Optimism (+1.8%) and BNB Chain (-0.2%) barely moved.
Three straight declines against a rising TVL is now a trend, not noise. The trading layer is being drained even as collateral piles up — and this week the drain concentrated in TRON, the chain that holds a third of the float, rather than being spread across the sample.
6 Stablecoin concentration
| Rank | Chain | Stablecoins | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ethereum | $147.5B | 52.1% |
| 2 | TRON | $92.8B | 32.8% |
| 3 | BNB Chain | $16.9B | 6.0% |
| 4 | Solana | $16.7B | 5.9% |
| 5 | Base | $5.0B | 1.8% |
| 6 | Arbitrum | $3.8B | 1.4% |
| 7 | Optimism | $0.6B | 0.2% |
Ethereum and TRON together hold 84.8% of the float in our sample — effectively unchanged. What changed is the direction inside the pair: Ethereum flat, TRON down 1.3%.
7 Network fees
| Chain | Fees | W/W | Share | Fees / TVL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $86.2M | +15.2% | 35.4% | 0.161 |
| TRON | $1.8M | -10.0% | 0.7% | 0.032 |
| BNB Chain | $19.8M | -12.4% | 8.1% | 0.339 |
| Solana | $113.7M | +8.6% | 46.7% | 1.718 |
| Base | $13.9M | +21.9% | 5.7% | 0.222 |
| Arbitrum | $7.2M | +176.9% | 3.0% | 0.497 |
| Optimism | $0.8M | -20.0% | 0.3% | 0.163 |
Fees were the week's engine, up 11.1% to $243.4M. Solana led at $113.7m (+8.6%) on TVL that grew 7.1%, so its fee intensity per dollar locked held near its sample-high level. Ethereum earned $86.2m (+15.2%) — its largest weekly fee total in the sample — on volume that rose just 0.7%. Base added 21.9% to $13.9m. On the way down: BNB Chain -12.4% to $19.8m, TRON -10.0% and Optimism -20.0% on a small base.
The outlier is Arbitrum at $7.2m, up 176.9% from $2.6m. On a small base a doubling reads as a spike, but a near-tripling is worth watching for one more week before calling it a level shift. The structural gap elsewhere is unchanged: Solana earns about $17.2 of fees per $1,000 of TVL against Ethereum's $1.61 — roughly eleven times.
8 Turnover and capital efficiency
| Chain | Turnover (vol / TVL) | W/W | Weekly fees / TVL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | 2.77x | -13.8% | 1.718% |
| Arbitrum | 1.12x | +5.8% | 0.497% |
| BNB Chain | 1.11x | -18.1% | 0.339% |
| Base | 1.03x | -1.3% | 0.222% |
| Optimism | 0.47x | +0.3% | 0.163% |
| Ethereum | 0.20x | -1.1% | 0.161% |
| TRON | 0.06x | +5.3% | 0.032% |
Blended turnover fell 7.3% to 0.55x from 0.59x — down in four of the last five weeks. Fees rose while volume fell, so the decline is not a slowdown in activity; it is deposits rising faster than any measure of use.
The dispersion across chains remains enormous: Solana turns its TVL over 2.77 times a week against Ethereum's 0.20. Both fell this week, so the gap is stable even as the level drops.
9 Composite scorecard
| Chain | TVL | DEX | Stables | Fees | Turnover | Avg rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | 2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1.8 |
| Ethereum | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 2.4 |
| BNB Chain | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3.2 |
| Base | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4.0 |
| Arbitrum | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 4.8 |
| TRON | 5 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 5.2 |
| Optimism | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 6.6 |
The scorecard rewards breadth, and this week breadth was genuine: every chain grew TVL and five of seven grew or held volume. Solana and Ethereum top the table on deposit-and-fee breadth; BNB Chain's week was again the inverse of the sample — TVL up, but volume and fees down together.
10 Anomaly screen
| Chain | Metric | Current | 4-wk avg | z-score | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | Fees | 86.20 | 74.12 | 17.26 | watch |
| Solana | TVL | 6.62 | 5.98 | 4.76 | watch |
| Base | TVL | 6.27 | 5.67 | 3.44 | watch |
| TRON | Stablecoins | 92.79 | 93.86 | -3.26 | watch |
| Arbitrum | TVL | 1.45 | 1.41 | 2.83 | watch |
| Optimism | TVL | 0.49 | 0.45 | 2.60 | watch |
| Base | Stablecoins | 5.05 | 4.97 | 2.04 | watch |
| Ethereum | TVL | 53.54 | 50.23 | 2.03 | watch |
| Optimism | Stablecoins | 0.56 | 0.50 | 1.73 | elevated |
| Optimism | Fees | 0.80 | 1.25 | -1.70 | elevated |
| Optimism | DEX volume | 0.23 | 0.19 | 1.69 | elevated |
| Arbitrum | DEX volume | 1.62 | 1.34 | 1.62 | elevated |
The screen flags the chains that moved most against their own four-week baselines. These are screens, not findings: they tell us where the baseline is being stretched, not what broke. Read them alongside the fee table — Ethereum's fee line and Solana's TVL line lead this week, and both have ordinary explanations in the numbers above.
11 Comparison with the trailing four weeks
| Metric | Current | 4-wk avg | Delta | Delta % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TVL ($B) | 79.86 | 74.93 | 4.93 | +6.6% |
| DEX volume ($B) | 44.00 | 44.44 | -0.44 | -1.0% |
| Stablecoins ($B) | 283.32 | 284.44 | -1.12 | -0.4% |
| Fees ($M) | 243.40 | 218.70 | 24.70 | +11.3% |
TVL growth leaders this week: Solana (+7.1%), Base (+5.9%), Optimism (+4.3%). Weakest TVL change: TRON (+1.3%), Arbitrum (+1.4%).
12 Concentration: how much sits in the top three
| Metric | Top three chains | Combined share | Largest | Largest w/w |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TVL | Ethereum, Solana, Base | 83.2% | $53.5B | +1.8% |
| DEX volume | Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain | 80.3% | $18.3B | -7.6% |
| Stablecoin supply | Ethereum, TRON, BNB Chain | 90.8% | $147.5B | +0.1% |
| Network fees | Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain | 90.3% | $113.7M | +8.6% |
Fee revenue and stablecoin float remain the most concentrated lines; TVL the least. Solana and Ethereum together still account for over four-fifths of the week's fees.
13 Deep dive: the three chains that moved the week
| Chain | TVL | Role | Strength | Watch item |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | $6.6B | Execution and trading | Fastest TVL gain (+7.1%) and fee leader at $113.7m | Whether volume follows the deposits |
| Ethereum | $53.5B | Settlement and collateral | Fresh sample-high TVL; fees +15.2% on flat volume | Whether the fee spike repeats |
| BNB Chain | $5.8B | High-throughput trading | TVL +1.9% but volume -16.5%, fees -12.4% | Whether the volume unwind finishes |
Reading the sample through these three: Solana did the thing deposit weeks are supposed to do and converted capital into fees, Ethereum earned more without trading more — the divergence in one row — and BNB Chain is now two weeks into a volume unwind that its deposits have not yet reversed.
14 Limitations of this report
- TVL can double-count recursive strategies, so treat levels as approximate and compare week-over-week changes rather than absolute values.
- DEX volume data comes from venue-reported series; wash trading is filtered inconsistently across chains.
- Stablecoin supply counts tokens resident on chain, which is not the same as economic ownership by users there.
- Network fee figures exclude application-level revenue, so chains hosting large application take-rates may be understated.
- A single base chain can move the ecosystem aggregate; always read the per-chain rows alongside the totals.
15 Formulas used in this report
16 What this means
The honest summary is that the week earned more than it traded. Fees rose 11.1% to $243.4M and every chain added deposits — TVL +2.5% to $79.86B — while DEX volume fell 5.0% and turnover dropped to 0.55x. Fee growth without volume growth is a divergence this series has shown before — the new part is the size of the fee gain on the rising side — and one week does not settle whether it is new usage or event-driven traffic.
The question the data hands to next week is which side reverts. If volume catches up to fees, the usage story reopens with the largest capital base in the sample behind it. If fees fall back while volume stays soft, this week was the on-chain wake of the Bitget breach rather than a new operating level. The stablecoin float, down for a third straight week, bounds both cases: the pool that funds trading is still shrinking.
For anyone allocating rather than trading, the turnover line is the one to watch. Yields across lending and staking respond to capital velocity, and velocity fell this week even as the networks earned more — a combination that historically resolves in the direction of the fee series, not the volume one.
Key Takeaways
- TVL rose 2.5% to $79.86B — the second all-green week in our sample, the first since late August.
- Network fees jumped 11.1% to $243.4M while DEX volume fell 5.0% to $44.00B.
- Solana led deposits (+7.1%) and fees ($113.7m, +8.6%); Ethereum hit a fresh $53.54bn TVL high.
- Ethereum fees rose 15.2% to $86.2m on volume that grew just 0.7% — the week's key divergence.
- Stablecoin float slipped 0.1% to $283.32B for a third straight weekly decline; TRON fell 1.3%.
- Blended turnover dropped to 0.55x from 0.59x — down in four of the last five weeks.
17 The week in brief
This was a fee week inside a deposit week — and neither was a volume week. Aggregate TVL rose 2.5% to $79.86B, the second all-green week in our sample and the first since the late-August level shift. Network fees jumped 11.1% to $243.4M. Yet DEX volume fell 5.0% to $44.00B and blended turnover dropped from 0.59x to 0.55x. The networks earned more while the traders traded less — a divergence the series has shown before, though never with fees rising this far while volume fell, and one week does not make it a pattern.
Solana defined the deposit side. It added about $0.44bn (+7.1%) to a $6.62bn base — the largest percentage gain since the late-August level shift and a z-score of 4.76 against its own four-week baseline. Base followed (+5.9% to $6.27bn) and Optimism rose 4.3%. Ethereum's +1.8% looks modest but pushed it to $53.54bn, a fresh high for the sample; TRON, BNB Chain and Arbitrum each gained between 1.2% and 1.9%.
The fee side belongs to Ethereum and Arbitrum. Ethereum earned $86.2m (+15.2%) on flat volume, and Arbitrum's $7.2m was 2.8x its prior week from a small base. Whether that is durable usage or the on-chain wake of the week's dominant security story — the Bitget exchange breach — the fee series alone cannot say, and we flag it as a screen rather than a finding.
18 The week in numbers
19 How this report is built
| Metric | Primary source | Cadence | Known limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| TVL | DefiLlama /v2/historicalChainTvl | Sunday snapshot | Recursive strategies can double-count |
| DEX volume | DefiLlama /overview/dexs | Seven-day sum | Excludes wash trading inconsistently by venue |
| Stablecoin supply | DefiLlama stablecoincharts | Sunday snapshot | Counts float resident on chain, not ownership |
| Network fees | DefiLlama /overview/fees | Seven-day sum | Excludes application-level revenue |
| Turnover | Derived: volume / TVL | Weekly ratio | Sensitive to TVL valuation effects |
Sources & Methodology
- DefiLlama — Total Value Locked series (/v2/historicalChainTvl, daily snapshots per chain).
- DefiLlama — DEX spot volume series (/overview/dexs, daily observations per chain).
- DefiLlama — stablecoin supply (stablecoins.llama.fi/stablecoincharts, daily snapshots per chain).
- DefiLlama — network fees (/overview/fees, daily observations per chain).
- Derived: turnover (weekly DEX volume / TVL) and fee yield (weekly fees / TVL).
Headlines and figures on this page are drawn from the outlets listed above; commentary is clearly labelled opinion and is not investment advice. Last reviewed 2026-09-27.