Ethereum Turns 11: A Mixed Blessing with $148 Billion in Stablecoins and Cooling Mainnet Fees!

📌 Quick Summary in 3 Lines

• Ethereum celebrated its 11th anniversary on July 30 this year.

• The network reportedly holds about $148.8 billion in stablecoins and $15.5 billion in real-world assets (RWA).

• However, the mainnet's revenue has cooled off, caught between scaling and base layer fee income.

Ethereum has turned 11!

Ethereum has turned 11! This network's birthday has come with the typical contradictions that characterize Ethereum. It remains one of the most important layers for transactions in the cryptocurrency world, yet revenue from the base chain has significantly cooled off.

According to data confirmed on July 31, 2026, Ethereum holds approximately $148.8 billion (around ¥22 trillion) in stablecoins (cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar) and about $15.5 billion (approximately ¥2.3 trillion) worth of tokenized real-world assets (RWA). On the other hand, the mainnet's daily revenue is about $330,000, while the 24-hour base chain fees were around $734,000.

This combination of numbers tells a more accurate story about Ethereum than any celebratory birthday greeting.

Ethereum is still incredibly important. Stablecoins, DeFi (decentralized finance), tokenized assets, Layer 2 payments, and infrastructure for institutional investors all revolve around Ethereum. However, due to rollups (a type of Layer 2 technology that processes transactions in batches) and other chains, as well as cheaper execution environments, activity is shifting away from the base chain, changing its economic model.

Ethereum is not going away. It’s simply that the revenue model is evolving. For more details, you can check the official Etherscan website (where Ethereum transaction histories can be viewed).

Ethereum's 11 years have been tumultuous

The first 11 years of Ethereum (though the original article mentions the first 10 years) have seen a lot of events.

This network started in July 2015 as "Frontier." Since then, it has faced various challenges, including the DAO crisis (a major hacking incident), hard forks (changes to blockchain rules), network congestion, the NFT (non-fungible token) boom, explosive growth in DeFi, the proliferation of stablecoins, competition with other Layer 1s (independent blockchains like Ethereum), regulatory pressures, and the transition to Proof of Stake (PoS) known as "The Merge."

It can be said that most of the financial experiments in cryptocurrency have used Ethereum as the default base.

Stablecoins have grown on Ethereum, and the lending market has expanded there as well. DEXs (decentralized exchanges) have also become widely used on Ethereum. Tokenized assets, DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), NFTs, and the Layer 2 ecosystem have all been built around Ethereum's developer base and security principles.

That’s why the numbers surrounding stablecoins are important.

Having $148.8 billion in stablecoins as a foundation is not just a flashy number. Even as networks that allow cheaper transactions compete for volume, Ethereum remains a major settlement environment for dollar-denominated cryptocurrency activities.

Is the drop in fees really all bad?

Automatically labeling the drop in mainnet revenue as a bad thing is not accurate. This decrease in mainnet revenue can be viewed from two perspectives.

The negative view (bearish perspective) is that Ethereum is losing economic value. If users pay less in fees to transact on the mainnet, the burning of ETH (Ethereum's cryptocurrency) will decrease, and the economics for validators (those who confirm transactions) will change. Consequently, the income the network directly derives from activity may decline, which is certainly significant.

However, a more balanced perspective suggests that Ethereum's scaling is functioning well, and the location of activity is changing. Rollups and Layer 2 networks are designed to reduce transaction costs and distribute processing away from the congested base chain. If users can transact more cheaply, then mainnet fees should decrease.

This is precisely the trade-off.

Ethereum has desired scaling. With scaling, fees decrease. When fees decrease, direct revenue from the mainnet declines. The question is whether Ethereum can capture enough value through settlement (finalizing transactions), data utilization (the availability of data), the premium on the monetary value of ETH (price increases due to scarcity), and integration with Layer 2 to compensate for the reduced activity on the base chain. This is currently one of the central discussions in the Ethereum community.

Stablecoins continue to be one of Ethereum's strongest anchors.

Speculative applications come and go, but stablecoins have become a core infrastructure for finance. Traders use them, exchanges use them, DeFi protocols use them, and payment companies use them. Corporate treasury departments and market makers also utilize them.

If Ethereum continues to hold a significant portion of the value of stablecoins, even if some transaction execution moves elsewhere, it will remain strategically important.

The same can be said for tokenized real-world assets (RWA).

The reported $15.5 billion in RWA is still small compared to traditional finance (banks and brokerage firms), but it is a significant number in the cryptocurrency world. Tokenized government bonds, credit products, funds, and other on-chain assets have become major themes that institutional investors (large professional investors) seriously discuss in the market.

Ethereum's role as a "trusted settlement layer" with deep liquidity (ease of trading), development tools, and a long-standing infrastructure is more important than simply being the cheapest chain.

The emergence of Layer 2 has also changed how Ethereum earns

The Layer 2 strategy is both a strength and a source of complexity for Ethereum.

On the positive side, rollups (a type of Layer 2 technology) have made Ethereum more user-friendly. They reduce congestion, lower transaction costs, and allow applications to scale without all users directly interacting with the mainnet.

On the downside, liquidity can become fragmented, and the direct pressure on fees (gas costs) to the base chain can decrease.

This creates new challenges for the valuation of ETH (Ethereum's token).

In the old model, the higher the demand for block capacity (space to record transactions), the higher the fees, and the more ETH was burned. But in the new model, while activity occurs on many Layer 2s, Ethereum may earn through demand related to settlement and data. This is healthy for users but may make it difficult for investors to predict future value.

Thus, Ethereum's 11th birthday comes at a very important juncture.

Ethereum no longer needs to prove that smart contracts (automatically executed contracts) are important. That battle was won years ago. Now, it is at the stage of proving whether a modular scaling strategy can adequately support the economics of ETH (value and profitability).

Ethereum's position remains strong, but the simple success narratives are over.

Just saying, "Ethereum has the most developers" or "DeFi has the deepest history" is no longer sufficient. Competitors are faster, cheaper, and more specialized. Layer 2s can scale but also contribute to liquidity fragmentation. Mainnet fees alone can no longer tell the whole story.

The truly important question is, "Where will value ultimately settle?"

If stablecoins, RWAs (tokenized real-world assets), DeFi collateral, and rollups continue to depend on Ethereum's security, then lower fees may be part of a successful scaling strategy. However, if too much activity and value drift away without providing economic benefits to ETH, the market will likely see this as a problem.

That’s why the current data is so intriguing.

At 11 years old, Ethereum remains a foundational presence, but the business model of the base layer is being rewritten in real-time.