📝 Editor's Note:

Welcome back to OurNetwork's latest.

In this issue, we're covering Layer 1s, a crucial sector in crypto which has reentered the conversation thanks to recent high profile entrants like Monad and Tempo.

Layer 1s matter because they're the crown jewels of crypto — the platforms on which large hubs of financial and consumer activity have, or possibly will, develop.

In terms of TVL, Ethereum leads all chains with $113B of value stored in its smart contracts. Solana is second with $18B. Still, there is no consensus on how to value Layer 1s, which has led to furious online debates. The issue below examines some non-TVL aspects of Layer 1s, like app revenue, monthly transactions, and active smart contracts.

With contributions from the growthepie team, Surf Query, and SSaadmanM, let's get into the weeds a bit.

– ON Editorial Team

Ethereum | Solana | Sei

• Recently renewed efforts to scale Ethereum L1 are accelerating: Transactions per second roughly doubled in 2025 alone, from ~12.5 to ~24.6. Ethereum has enjoyed 10+ years of decentralized uptime while scaling TPS by 34.6x. Yet for over two years (2022-2024), L1 TPS flatlined at ~12.4 while L2s increased by 15x. The new roadmap targets ~3x annual L1 TPS growth alongside L2 scaling.

• Ethereum is currently generating $29M in daily app revenue fueled by its majority share in stablecoin supply. Zooming out, a clear upward trend can be seen with the next leg up likely to reach new all-time highs. Note: growthepie.com includes weighted stablecoin revenue in app revenue - many platforms do not.

• In the past 180 days 40.88% of Ethereum's gas fees came from DeFi/finance (58% of labeled activity). When compared to all-time this is up from 30.26%, a significant increase. Ethereum blockspace still commands a premium but it is getting cheaper and this is affecting how it is used.

• Solana is the leading engine of onchain activity, processing 21.7B transactions this year—more than every other chain combined. It’s rapidly becoming a core venue for onchain capital markets, moving $756B in real economic value year-to-date, including a record $274B in October and a strong $85.3B in November. Solana also hit a new all-time-high of $15.75B in circulating supply. Usage remains exceptional: monthly active stablecoin senders consistently exceed 3M, with October 2025 reaching the annual peak at 4.7M.

• Solana’s peer-to-peer economy is growing. P2P volumes stayed above $100B in November, with $652M in retail (<$1K) and $3B in salary (<$20K) payments, up 56% and 27% year-to-date. Solana has processed 88.4M P2P transactions this year, including 14M, an all-time high, in November and as its active stablecoin user base grew by 24%.

• Squads powers secure asset and treasury management on Solana through its products Fuse and Altitude. Squads has processed over $6.8B in outgoing volume, including a record $1.12B in November with 75% of that in USDC. November also saw a record $44M in DEX trade participation through Squads’ highly compatible interface.

• Daily unique wallets interacting with gaming contracts on Sei have been above 500k since late May. The major games are Token Tails, Match Fighters, and Cute Island which have been driving the recent trend.

• There have been around 100k DEX transactions per day since Sept. 9. The major and flagship DEX of Sei, SailorSwap is driving most of the daily transaction count but a large number of daily active users come from DragonSwap as well, which has been one of the longest running Sei DEXs.

• Even during crypto downturns daily active contract usage is up on Sei. The top active contracts are games like Matched Fighters, which log many actions onchain. DEXs are also a popular vertical and are doing nearly $20m worth of swaps daily.