The blockchain sector is demonstrating signs of increased maturity — at least according to one often-ignored metric — indicating wider adoption across decentralized finance, consumer applications, and emerging areas.
A recent Onchain Revenue Report from venture capital firm 1kx reveals that onchain revenue, determined by user-paid fees, is projected to hit $19.8 billion by 2025. This comes after a record-setting $9.7 billion in the first half of the year alone.
These fees reflect the total expenditure users make to transact directly on blockchain and associated infrastructure, which includes trades, swaps, registrations, gaming revenues, and subscriptions, among others.
While 2025 is not expected to exceed the all-time high of $24.1 billion set in 2021, the overall onchain fees have surged more than tenfold since 2020, marking a compound annual growth rate of approximately 60%.
“We consider fees paid as the most reliable indicator, reflecting a consistent utility that users and companies are willing to invest in,” stated report authors Lasse Clausen, Christopher Heymann, Robert Koschig, Clare He, and Johannes Säuberlich.
“As protocols advance and regulations improve, the capacity to produce and distribute steady fee revenue will differentiate sustainable networks from early-stage experiments,” they added.
Beyond serving as a gauge of financial stability, increasing onchain fees provide insights into the broader acceptance of blockchain technology, especially in emerging areas like real-world asset tokenization, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs), and wallet-based consumer applications.
The 1kx report suggests that this growth indicates a substantial transition: Cryptocurrencies are transforming from speculative tools into a credible, revenue-generating asset class with real network effects.
Related: Bitcoin faces a fee crisis that threatens network security: Can BTCfi help?
Tokenized assets are gaining traction
The report noted the swift growth of tokenized RWAs, with their onchain value, excluding stablecoins, exceeding $28 billion by the third quarter of 2025. That number has risen to over $35 billion, based on data from RWA.xyz.
According to 1kx, the total value of tokenized assets onchain has more than doubled in the last year, with fees generated by those assets increasing even more rapidly — a clear indication of heightened user engagement and market acceptance.
Major Wall Street firms, including JPMorgan, BlackRock, and BNY Mellon, are making substantial investments in asset tokenization. As Cointelegraph reported, JPMorgan has tokenized one of its private equity funds on its proprietary Kinexys blockchain, while BNY Mellon has collaborated with RWA platform Securitize to bring collateralized loan obligations onchain.
Related: Tokenization platform tZero eyes 2026 IPO amid surge in crypto listings
