Has Solana already surpassed Ethereum? Understanding the true value of public chains through the on-chain new indicator REV debate.

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

What is REV? Revealing the "real value" of on-chain economy.

REV, short for Real Economic Value, refers to "real economic value" and is a new metric for measuring the income of blockchain protocols. Unlike the traditional approach that only considers the base transaction fees (Base Transaction Fees), REV takes into account all on-chain income directly related to bidding for block space, including:

Base Fees (: Transaction base execution cost

Priority Fees ): The additional fees paid by users to prioritize their transactions on-chain.

MEV Tips ( Validator Tips ): Additional income earned by validators through transaction sorting, such as Jito tips on Solana.

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

Which public chains have stood out in the REV battlefield?

According to the three charts from Blockworks Research "Network REV, Application Revenue by Chain, Blockchain Key Stats," the most outstanding public chains in the 30-day data for May 2025 are as follows:

Solana

Network REV reached up to 121 million USD, accounting for 48.2% of the entire chain, while App Revenue further reached 226 million USD, accounting for 65.9% of the total application revenue. It is evident that Solana is currently the dual champion in both REV and application layer revenue, performing far better than other public chains.

Tron

The protocol layer revenue reached 53.48 million USD, accounting for 21.3% of the entire chain, but the App Revenue was only 686,000, and it also declined by 9.1%, indicating that its on-chain economic activity is concentrated on non-application layer purposes.

Ethereum

Network REV is $36.66 million, accounting for 14.6% of the entire chain, while App Revenue is $49.31 million, accounting for 14.3% of the total application revenue. The proportion of REV appears conservative compared to Solana, demonstrating a solid economic foundation and a mature application layer ecosystem.

Others including BNB Chain, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon PoS show low REV Share indicating lower network activity, but App Revenue still maintains a certain level, with only protocol layer revenue remaining at a lower level.

The advantages and blind spots of the REV indicator: Is it a new value indicator, or is it too biased?

advantage

More comprehensive income measurement: Incorporating MEV and tips, allowing on-chain economic activities to no longer be underestimated.

Quantifying Block Space Demand: High REV indicates high competition, which may also represent high activity.

Facilitates cross-chain comparison: provides measurable criteria, allowing investors and researchers to quickly assess the real-time economic activity of public chains.

Disadvantages

Oversimplifying network value: focusing only on short-term income and high volatility, which cannot reflect the potential of developer communities, network effects, and ecological development.

The Controversy of MEV: MEV is often seen as detrimental to users, and incorporating it into REV may amplify its negative effects.

Ignoring long-term mechanism design: For example, Ethereum's EIP-1559 fee burning policy helps with long-term scarcity but does not reflect in REV.

(What is Gas limit? Vitalik predicts that Ethereum will significantly increase Gas limit in 2026, aiming not to sacrifice decentralization)

Why are the E Guardians rising up against REV?

Including sassal.eth and other opponents like Mary, they expressed three major criticisms of REV on X:

Overemphasizing short-term data underestimates Ethereum's long-term potential: the adoption rate of network developers, infrastructure construction, and the L2 ecosystem cannot be measured through REV.

Consider MEV as improper revenue: MEV is regarded as a "hidden tax burden," which is detrimental to user experience and the long-term economic development of the network, and should be minimized as much as possible.

Let the comparison between ETH and Solana become unbalanced: REV emphasizes transaction volume and costs, which is disadvantageous for Ethereum that focuses on security and decentralized design, making it meaningless for comparison. The community views it as a form of "unfair assessment" or even a tool to "speak negatively about ETH."

However, there are also neutral opinions like that of Matt Huang, co-founder of Parrdigm, who points out that while REV is not perfect, it is still an indicator of the activity level in the blockchain economy, and one should avoid falling into bias when using it.

( Is the decline in transaction fee revenue a sign of decay? Ignas: The intrinsic value of Ethereum has already been reshaped in the process of evolution )

Is REV a new evaluation standard for L1 or a misleading indicator?

REV undoubtedly brings new thinking to the analysis and evaluation of public chains, and provides a quantitative basis for measuring the real usage of the network. However, like other indicators such as TVL or App Revenue, it is not a universal standard.

For Solana, REV is a testament to glorious achievements; for Ethereum supporters, REV is an immature assessment method. In the future, if it can be combined with developer activities, network effects, and protocol deflation data, it may constitute a more complete on-chain assessment model.

Has Solana already surpassed Ethereum? A discussion on the new on-chain indicator REV reveals the true value of public chains, first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.